THE  GOLD 

CHAIN 

}WENDOLE 
OVERTON 


GENERAL 


LIBRARY 

OF    THE 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA. 

Class   • 


LITTLE   NOVELS    BT 

FAVOURITE  AUTHORS 
*       J*       jt 


The  Golden  Chain 

* 

GWENDOLEN  OVERTON 


L 


THE  TWO  KNELT  THERE,  SIDE  BY  SIDE. 


The 
Golden   Chain 


BY 

GWENDOLEN    OVERTON 

AUTHOR    OF    "  THE    HERITAGE    OF 

UNREST,"    "ANNE  CARMEL," 

ETC. 


-SITY 


Ndji  ffotft 
THE   MACMILLAN   COMPANY 

LONDON :   MACMILLAN  &  CO.,  LTD. 

1903 
AH  rights  reserved 


GENERAL 


COPYRIGHT,  1903, 
BY  THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY. 

Set  up,  clectrotypcd,  and  published  October,  1903. 
Reprinted  November,  1903. 


Nortooott  $«s« 

J.  8.  Cashing  &  Co.  -  Berwick  &  Smith  Co. 
Norwood,  Mass.,  U.S.A. 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

"  The  two  knelt  there,  side  by  side  "    . 

Frontispiece 
"  There  was  a  frown  on  his  forehead,  as  he 

looked  up  to  the  stars  "   .  facing  page      66 


2033741 


THE   GOLDEN   CHAIN 


THE  GOLDEN  C 


CHAPTER 


P  to  then  no  golden  chain-had 
entered  into  his  experience  — 
neither  that  which  hung  about 
the  neck  of  Our  Lady  of  the 
Carmen  at  Tierra  Blanca,  nor  that  of 
love  which  the  optimistic  old  song  as- 
sures us  Time  cannot  break. 

He  lounged  in  his  saddle  with  his 
arms  crossed  on  the  high  pommel  and 
indulged  himself  in  idly  fancying  how 
an  arrow  shot  from  the  hill  crest  where 
he  was  would  go  straight  across  the 
clear,  pale  evening  heavens  and  stick, 
quivering  its  feather,  in  the  bright  and 
tiny  star  which  touched  one  horn  of  the 
new  moon  on  the  outer  edge.  He  was 
3 


THE   GOLDEN  CHAIN 

on  the  top  of  a  sheer,  steep  hill,  steepest 
of  the  spur  it  ended,  and  his  view  was 
over  all  the  world,  which,  in  his  one 
and  twenty  years,  he  had  seen — over 
the  mesa  to  the  great  blue  ranges  of 
the  north  and  east,  over  the  Valle  del 
Muerto,  grey  and  shrub-flecked  and  bar- 
ren, to  the  higher  ranges  of  the  south 
and  west.  It  had  been  a  hard  climb, 
and  the  cow-pony  stood  with  its  fore 
legs  wide  apart,  its  nostrils  spreading 
and  sinking,  its  cream-coloured  mane  and 
tail  floating  in  the  wind,  and  its  sleek 
sides  going  in  and  out  regularly,  as  it 
panted  for  breath.  Keble  dismounted 
to  give  it  a  better  chance.  Its  nose 
went  down  to  the  sparse  grass  among 
the  spears  of  scarlet  sage  and  pink 
wind-flowers. 

Just  below  the  new  crescent  was  a 
great  snow  mountain,  gleaming  warm 
tinted  with  the  faint  pink  flush  of  the 
afterglow,  its  base  vague  in  the  mists 
that  rise  at  nightfall  in  the  distances  of 
the  plains.  When  the  crescent  and  its 
4 


THE   GOLDEN  CHAIN 

star  gem  began  to  grow  yellower  as  the 
sky  turned  deeper  purple,  and  the  snow 
mountain  a  cold,  hazy  violet,  his  eyes 
dropped  from  them  to  the  canon  down 
below.  The  road  was  hidden  there  by 
the  thick  pines,  but  before  it  entered  the 
gorge  it  was  plain  for  a  long  distance, 
winding  around  the  base  of  a  gentle 
swell,  out  into  the  valley  beyond. 

And  there  were  two  wagons  just 
emerging  along  it,  from  under  the  shel- 
ter of  the  knoll,  two  covered  wagons 
of  which  the  canvas  looked  new  and 
white. 

He  knitted  his  brow  and  shaded  his 
far-visioned  blue  eyes  with  his  hand. 

There  were  two  horses  to  the  first 
wagon,  the  second  was  drawn  by  a 
spike  team,  the  leader  of  which  seemed 
to  be  a  mule.  A  speck,  which  was 
doubtless  a  dog,  followed.  Until  the 
deepening  twilight  began  to  make  itself 
felt  he  watched,  imagining  who  might 
be  beneath  the  canvas,  as  he  frequently 
allowed  himself  to  imagine  things — but 
5 


THE  GOLDEN  CHAIN 

kept  the  diversion  strictly  to  himself. 
Imagination,  along  the  majority  of  lines, 
was  discountenanced  among  his  asso- 
ciates. 

Presently  he  began  the  descent  of  the 
steep  trail.  It  was  almost  dark  —  the 
clear  darkness  of  southwestern  nights, 
like  the  depths  of  a  cold,  still  water  pool. 
And  among  the  pines,  when  he  reached 
them,  the  road  showed  only  as  a  streak 
of  vaguely  luminous  grey.  The  pony 
broke  into  a  long  gallop,  its  unshod 
hoofs  making  hardly  more  than  a  pat- 
ter on  the  pounded  gravel.  They  came 
to  a  creek  crossing,  where  the  water 
trickled  shallow  over  the  stones,  splashed 
through  and  went  up  the  slight  slope  at 
the  farther  side. 

Then  a  dog  barked,  the  sharp,  shrill 
yap  of  a  cur,  and  a  light  shone  from 
back  among  the  trunks  and  branches  of 
the  trees. 

The  pony  turned  of  its  own  accord 
into  a  branch  road,  cutting  off  from  the 
main  one  to  the  right,  trotted  into  a 
6 


THE   GOLDEN  CHAIN 

wide  clearing,  and  came  to  the  abrupt 
halt  learned  of  its  lassoing  experiences. 

Its  rider,  whose  six  feet  of  stalwart 
body  was  ludicrously  too  big  for  the 
diminutive  dimensions  of  his  horse,  flung 
himself  off  and,  running  his  arm  through 
the  reins,  walked  up  to  two  wagons 
whose  fresh-painted  bodies  and  red 
spokes  gave  back  the  shine  of  the  lantern 
which  hung  against  the  log-cabin  wall. 
Two  lank  beasts,  half-dog,  half-prairie 
wolf,  sniffed  about  his  heels.  A  strange 
dog  cowered  under  a  bucket  dangling 
from  a  rear  axle  of  one  of  the  wagons, 
his  bushy  tail  curved  in  under  his  legs. 
He  looked  anxious  and  deprecating 
and  badly  scared.  The  four  horses  and 
one  mule  were  unhitched  and  tethered 
to  the  grain  boxes  at  the  backs  of  their 
respective  turnouts,  munching  content- 
edly, snorting,  and  clanking  the  rings 
of  their  halters  against  the  wood.  It 
looked  a  prosperous  outfit  certainly. 

There  was  nothing  in  the  least  unusual 
in  the  occurrence  of  strangers  stopping 
7 


THE   GOLDEN  CHAIN 

at  the  cabin  over  night.  It  was  the 
halfway  place,  between  the  fort  and 
Gold  City,  at  one  end  —  Tierra  Blanca 
and  its  adjacent  mines  at  the  other. 
He  was  curious,  but  not  too  keenly  so 
as  not  to  stable  his  pony  properly  in 
the  corral  and  give  a  parting  rub  to  the 
warm  white  nose.  Then,  slapping  the 
lash  of  his  horse  hah"  quirt  against  his 
boot-tops,  he  crossed  to  the  cabin  and 
opened  the  door. 

From  the  threshold  he  took  his  obser- 
vations with  deliberation.  There  were 
four  strangers  in  the  room,  two  men  and 
two  women,  and  they  sat  with  his  father 
and  younger  brother  at  the  far  end, 
around  a  big  open  fireplace  built  of 
stones  and  after  the  Mexican  fashion, 
across  a  corner.  Mrs.  Keble  was  visible 
in  the  kitchen  working  over  the  stove. 

He  closed  the  door  behind  him  and 
came  in. 

The  elder  Keble  had,  in  his  youth, 
come  from  out  the  New  England  states, 
where  he  had  been  the  teacher  of  the 
8 


THE   GOLDEN  CHAIN 

school  in  his  own  town.  And,  on  oc- 
casions, the  traditions  of  that  better 
land  and  long  past  time  returned  to 
him.  He  would  revert  then  to  ways 
and  to  modes  of  speech  which  were  not 
those  of  the  country  wherein  he  had 
chosen  to  become  a  settler,  a  mere 
squatter,  among  the  hills  on  the  con- 
fines of  an  Indian  reservation.  He  pre- 
sented his  elder  son,  Dudley,  now,  with 
elaboration  and  formality.  The  men 
rose  and  shook  hands.  So,  likewise,  did 
one  of  the  women.  Her  black  eyes  had 
taken  swift  and  practised  appraisal,  and 
her  greeting  was  more  than  necessarily 
amiable.  Dudley  was  not  without  ex- 
perience of  life  of  a  kind,  the  life  of 
cow  camps  and  of  the  towns  that  follow 
afterward.  And  his  own  estimate  was, 
in  swiftness,  no  less  than  hers,  in  exact- 
ness somewhat  greater.  She,  and  such 
as  she,  he  accepted  as  of  a  charm  by  no 
means  equalled  in  virtue,  but  having  for 
himself  no  immediate  concern,  arousing 
no  particular  interest. 
9 


THE   GOLDEN  CHAIN 

The  sweetness  of  her  lingering  look 
he  met  prosaically.  Then  he  turned  his 
attention  to  the  other  woman  —  hardly, 
he  saw  at  once,  so  much  a  woman  as 
a  child.  She  had  not  risen,  but  she 
glanced  up  gravely  into  his  face,  and 
then  —  perhaps  because  it  was  a  frank 
and  pleasant  face  under  its  bronzing  tan 
—  she  smiled,  a  half -wistful  little  smile, 
curling  one  corner  of  her  mouth.  He 
could  see  that  she  was  tired  out. 

There  were  very  few  chairs  in  the 
cabin's  scant  furniture,  and  those  few 
were  in  use.  He  went  out  again  and 
brought  in  a  potato  box  for  himself, 
setting  it  on  one  end  at  the  side  of 
the  hearth.  The  girl  was  across  from 
him,  but  she  had  become,  apparently, 
oblivious  of  his  existence,  and  sat  with 
her  chin  on  her  fist,  absorbed  in  one 
blue-centred  tongue  of  flame,  which 
licked  intermittently  through  the  knot 
hole  of  a  log.  Her  face  was  without 
colour,  and  her  rough  curls  of  brown 
were  lustreless  under  the  powder  of 


THE   GOLDEN  CHAIN 

alkali  dust.  Now  and  then  she  yawned 
with  all  a  child's  weariness  and  uncon- 
sciousness, or  closed  the  lids  over  her 
big  violet  eyes.  The  lashes  were  long 
as  they  lay  against  her  cheeks.  But  he 
had  made  no  study  of  the  points  and 
details  of  feminine  beauty,  and  he  did 
not  take  note  of  this  one.  In  a  general 
way  he  was  of  the  opinion  that  she 
was  prettier  than  the  other  of  the  swift 
black  glances  and  the  locks  of  vivid 
brass  —  beyond  that  his  interest  did 
not  go.  He  had  not  caught  her  name, 
but  the  men  were  Lewis  and  Denison, 
and  the  woman  was  Denison  also.  As 
to  what  the  quartet  was  doing  here, 
from  whence  it  came,  and  whither  it 
was  going,  nothing  was  said  —  or  else 
it  had  all  been  said  before  he  had  put 
in  his  appearance. 

Mrs.  Keble  was  passing  in  and  out, 
bringing  dishes  and  setting  them  on  the 
red-covered  table  with  a  rap.  He  left 
his  potato  crate  and  went  to  her  with  an 
offer  of  help.  It  was  not  over-graciously 


THE   GOLDEN  CHAIN 

received.  He  followed  her  into  the 
kitchen,  where  they  were  enveloped  and 
choked  in  drifting  smoke  from  the  burn- 
ing bacon  grease  still  in  the  iron  pan 
upon  the  hottest  part  of  the  stove.  He 
took  up  the  griddle  and  carried  it  out 
of  doors.  Mrs.  Keble  resented  the  cor- 
rection implied,  and  sneered  at  his  airs 
of  superior  nicety.  At  the  best  of  times 
she  was  not  a  pleasant  or  lovable  per- 
son. And  to-night  was  by  no  means 
the  best  of  times.  She  had  worked 
since  daylight  in  the  cabin  and  the 
clearing,  being  one  of  those  whose  toil 
is  unending  and  hard,  but  unproductive, 
too,  of  much  visible  result.  She  was 
worn  out,  as  she  invariably  managed  to 
be  by  nightfall.  Moreover,  she  was  of 
opinion  that  the  other  two  women  should 
have  helped.  They  were  furnishing  their 
own  provisions,  to  be  sure,  and  had,  fur- 
ther, given  it  to  be  understood  that  they 
would  pay  liberally.  That,  as  Mrs.  Keble 
saw  it,  did  not  end  their  obligation.  To 
pay  without  lending  a  hand  was  insti- 
12 


THE  GOLDEN  CHAIN 

tuting  class  privilege.  She  was  no  sub- 
dued New  England  woman  to  encourage 
that.  Hers  was  the  rampant  democracy 
of  the  West  which  had  given  her  birth. 

Her  son  ignored  the  ill  humour,  which 
was  not  so  unusual  as  to  be  disconcert- 
ing. He  took  from  her  a  tin  plate  full  of 
big,  yellow  baking-powder  biscuits.  Then 
he  jerked  his  head  over  his  shoulder  to 
where  the  group  around  the  fire  could 
be  dimly  seen  through  the  streaks  of 
smoke. 

"  Who,"  he  asked,  "  are  those  ? " 

"Actors,"  she  answered  shortly,  her 
lips  setting  on  the  word.  "  Travelling 
actors." 

She  banged  the  oven  door  to.  He 
frowned.  He  had  seen  other  troupes 
of  itinerant  players  in  the  towns,  after 
round-ups,  and  his  memories  of  them 
and  their  mode  of  life  were  not  such  as 
he  was  glad  to  have  to  associate  with 
the  girl  who  sat  in  there  with  her  cleft 
chin  on  her  knuckles,  and  her  big,  tired 
eyes  watching  the  flaming  knot  hole. 


THE   GOLDEN  CHAIN 

He  carried  the  heaped  biscuits  in  to 
the  table,  and  his  mother  followed  with 
the  coffee-pot.  They  sat  down  to  the 
supper. 

Mrs.  Denison,  having  accepted  her 
discomfiture  so  far  as  the  son  was  con- 
cerned, after  the  custom  of  the  free 
lance  took  the  next  at  hand  with  cheer- 
fulness, and  devoted  herself,  her  bright 
glances,  and  insistent  smile  to  the  father. 
There  was  a  twinkle  of  amusement  be- 
hind his  eyes ;  but  he  developed  a  turn 
for  elaborate  compliment,  and  a  store  of 
quotations  in  ornate  prose  and  verse  of 
which  he  had  never  before,  to  the  knowl- 
edge of  either  his  wife  or  son,  given  evi- 
dence. Mrs.  Keble  was  rigidly  silent. 
The  men  ate  hungrily,  intent  upon  just 
that,  and  the  girl  sat  through  the  meal 
only  answering  when  some  one  chanced 
to  speak  to  her. 

When    the    supper    was     over    the 

strangers   went   back  to   the   fireplace, 

still  with  never  an  offer  of  help  to  their 

severe  hostess.     The  blonde  was  hang- 

14 


THE    GOLDEN  CHAIN 

ing  on  Keble's  words.  Mrs.  Keble 
demanded  assistance  of  the  boys,  point- 
edly and  in  a  raised  voice,  which,  how- 
ever, missed  its  aim.  Dudley  sent  her 
to  sit  with  the  others,  taking  charge  of 
the  work  himself,  clearing  the  table, 
washing  the  dishes,  and  scraping  pots 
and  pans. 

It  took  him  over  an  hour.  When  he 
had  finished,  his  father  and  mother  and 
younger  brother  had  gone  to  bed,  the 
others  out  to  the  wagons  in  which  they 
slept.  The  big  room  was  deserted,  and, 
except  for  the  glow  of  the  coals  in 
the  fireplace,  dark.  But  the  red  light 
touched  the  hearthstones  and  the  tines 
of  a  great  pair  of  antlers  over  the  door, 
and  played  along  the  backs  of  a  row  of 
books  upon  a  shelf.  The  chromos  and 
pictures  cut  from  papers  and  tacked  up 
against  the  wall  rustled  a  little  in  the 
wind  that  came  through  the  chinks  and 
crevices  of  the  pine  half -logs. 


CHAPTER   II 

IT  was  icy  cold  when  Dudley 
went  out,  with  a  panful  of 
corn,  to  feed  the  hens  —  icy 
cold  and  still  barely  light. 
The  dawn  was  stealing  through  the 
pines.  Out  in  the  valley  it  was  prob- 
ably broad  morning,  but  the  days  were 
shorter  by  several  hours  here  in  the 
canon.  The  dogs  came  rubbing  them- 
selves against  his  legs,  and  even  the 
stranger  one  leapt  up  and  down  around 
him.  An  Indian,  treading  noiselessly 
through  the  woods  at  the  edge  of  the 
clearing,  passed  between  the  trunks  and 
out  of  sight.  The  hairs  on  the  necks 
of  the  animals  bristled.  They  had  seen 
Indians  every  day  of  their  lives,  but  had 
never  become  accustomed  to  them. 
16 


THE   GOLDEN  CHAIN 

Dudley  went  to  the  chicken  coop 
and  opened  the  trap,  then  stood  off 
and  called,  his  deep  voice  melodious, 
"  Hea-a-a-re,  chick-a-chick-a-chick,  he-a- 
a-re,  chick,  chick,  chick." 

They  came  out,  the  first  one  stopping  in 
the  small  opening  and  peering  with  the 
indecision  and  want  of  purpose  common 
to  its  kind;  then  another  pushed  her 
through,  and  they  crowded  by  twos  and 
threes,  tumbling  over  each  other  in  their 
greediness,  scampering  around  the  wide- 
tossed  corn,  golden,  white,  and  red.  The 
stock  belonging  to  the  theatrical  outfit 
snorted  suggestively.  He  went  up  to 
them  and  fed  each  a  few  grains  from  the 
palm  of  his  hand,  surreptitiously,  lest  his 
mother  should  come  out,  and,  seeing, 
object. 

No  one  was  stirring  in  the  wagons 
yet,  but  he  had  been  told  to  call  them. 
His  mother  was  getting  breakfast.  He 
scratched  on  the  canvas  of  the  first 
wagon,  at  which  the  strange  dog  sniffed 
suspiciously  about  his  heels,  showing 
c  17 


THE   GOLDEN  CHAIN' 

its  teeth.  Two  women's  voices  answered 
him  drowsily.  That  of  the  girl  he  recog- 
nised as  lower  pitched  and  softer  than 
the  other's.  He  went  away  whistling. 

While  he  was  in  the  corral,  milking  the 
half-savage  long-horn,  whose  milk  was 
as  thin  as  herself,  the  girl  came  over 
from  the  wagons  and  rested  her  arms 
on  the  top  of  the  fence.  He  nodded  to 
her.  The  corner  of  her  mouth  curled 
up  into  the  half-appealing  smile,  and  she 
answered  his  "good  morning."  And 
then,  after  a  pause  of  watching  him,  she 
put  a  request  —  if  she  were  to  get  her- 
self a  cup,  might  she  have  some  fresh 
milk  ?  Fresh  milk  as  a  fit  drink  for  any- 
thing more  discriminating  than  calves, 
had  never  before  occurred  to  him. 
There  was,  he  ventured  the  suggestion, 
cold  milk  from  the  evening  before  in  the 
house.  If  she  would  wait  until  he  should 
have  finished,  he  would  get  her  that. 
And  he  meant  to  get  it — his  mother's 
certain  opposition  to  the  contrary  not- 
withstanding. But  it  was  warm  and 
18 


THE   GOLDEN  CHAIN 

frothing  that  she  liked  it,  and  she  went 
away  for  the  cup.  He  filled  it,  hissing 
and  spurting  the  milk  in,  until  the  foam 
stood  high.  She  took  it  from  him  and 
drank  —  a  fleck  of  white  on  the  tip  of  her 
up-tilted  nose.  Then  she  stood  beside 
him,  swinging  the  empty  cup.  And  he 
explained  that  one  cow  had  gone  dry,  and 
another  had  eaten  loco-weed  and  died, 
that  the  present  pair  were  not  much  good, 
and  that  he  was  keeping  a  lookout  in 
the  foot-hills  for  any  wandering  ones  that 
might  look  promising. 

When  he  had  finished  with  the  first 
one,  he  picked  up  his  box  and  pail  and 
went  over  to  the  other.  The  girl  fol- 
lowed. She  moved  to  its  head  and  put 
out  her  fingers  to  scratch  the  white  star 
on  its  forehead.  It  was  a  heifer  caught, 
mean  and  wild,  in  the  hills.  For  a  second 
it  watched  her  with  rolling,  angry  eyes. 
Then  it  flung  its  horns  at  her  in  a  vicious 
sweep.  She  sprang  back  and  the  horns 
missed,  but  Dudley  had  jumped  to  his 
feet  and  half  the  small  supply  of  new 
19 


THE    GOLDEN  CHAIN 

milk  had  spilled  on  the  ground  before 
he  could  right  the  pail.  He  foresaw  his 
mother's  indignation  and  taunts.  It 
would  be  some  time  before  she  would 
let  him  hear  the  end  of  it.  The  girl  re- 
treated to  the  fence  and  he  went  back  to 
the  milking  with  closer  attention,  bending 
his  fair  head  down  close  in  to  the  bony 
red  flanks.  And  because  a  pair  of  violet 
eyes  were  watching  him,  and  a  soft 
voice  spoke  admiringly  of  his  skill,  the 
task  became  suddenly  interesting,  and  he 
was  urged  to  do  his  best  by  the  self -same 
impulse  which  has  sent  men  to  labour 
willingly  since  their  first  father  tilled  the 
ground  at  the  east  of  the  Garden. 

And  when  he  had  taken  the  milk  into 
the  house  and  given  his  account  of  the 
shortage  boldly,  he  turned  his  back  on 
his  mother  and  her  remarks,  and  went 
out  again  to  sit  on  the  top  of  the  corral 
fence,  his  heels  hooked  on  to  a  lower  bar, 
talking  with  the  little  actress  who  bal- 
anced on  the  tongue  of  one  of  the  green- 
bodied  wagons. 


THE    GOLDEN  CHAIN 

In  the  half  hour  before  they  were 
called  to  breakfast  he  had  learned  many 
things,  —  her  age,  primarily,  which  was 
seventeen,  and  her  name,  which  was 
-Evans  —  Felicia  Evans.  Her  aunt  had 
given  her  the  name  in  her  motherless 
babyhood.  And  her  aunt  was  she  of 
the  brazen  hair.  He  liked  the  name. 
A  worn  and  torn  volume  of  Shakespeare, 
in  microscopic  print  was  among  the  two 
dozen  books  which  filled  the  shelf  in 
the  cabin,  and  which  had  been  almost 
all  brought  by  his  father,  a  quarter  of  a 
century  before,  from  the  distant  East. 
He  had  read  it  time  and  again  and  he 
liked  the  names  which  ended  in  "  a " 
Viola,  Cordelia,  Ophelia,  Miranda,  Per- 
dita.  Felicia  —  it  was  a  good  deal  like 
those. 

The  morning  breeze,  much  warmer 
now,  blew  the  unruly  brown  curls  about 
her  face.  She  kept  throwing  them  back 
with  a  toss  of  the  head,  smoothing  them 
down  with  her  hand.  It  dawned  upon 
him  with  all  the  force  of  an  original 


THE   GOLDEN  CHAIN. 

discovery  that  the  hand  was  small  and 
white,  and  he  kept  looking  at  it  while 
she  told  him  how,  for  the  first  time,  she 
had  played  Juliet  at  the  post  before 
she  had  come  on  here.  Theretofore  she 
had  always,  it  seemed,  been  nurse  to  her 
aunt's  Juliet.  There  came  into  his  eyes 
something  of  the  twinkle  which  had 
been  in  his  father's  the  night  before,  as 
the  erstwhile  scholar  had  encouraged  the 
blandishments  of  that  same  aunt.  But 
Felicia  was  oblivious  to  it,  or  to  any- 
thing in  the  situation  which  might  be 
provocative  of  amusement.  She  was  a 
serious  little  person,  whose  forehead 
wrinkled  with  earnestness  at  moments, 
in  a  manner  which  reminded  Dudley 
irresistibly  of  his  dog. 

The  commandant  at  the  post,  she 
went  on  to  tell  him,  had  given  them  the 
use  of  the  schoolroom,  and  there  had 
been  a  platform  at  one  end.  For  three 
nights  they  had  played  to  packed  houses. 
The  post  band  had  furnished  an  or- 
chestra and  some  of  the  soldiers  had 
22 


THE   GOLDEN  CHAIN 

been  the  citizens,  kinsfolk,  and  maskers. 
They  had  had  no  costumes  but  their 
uniforms,  to  be  sure,  and  it  had  been 
necessary  to  do  without  the  ladies  Mon- 
tague and  Capulet  —  and  certain  others ; 
but  there  had  been  a  balcony  of  packing 
boxes  covered  with  turkey-red,  and  an 
orchard  of  real  bushes  which  the  men 
had  chopped.  Her  own  success  had  sur- 
passed anything  the  company  had  ever 
before  experienced.  The  second  night 
some  of  the  officers  had  thrown  her 
bouquets  of  wild  flowers.  Her  pale 
little  face  flushed,  and  her  eyes  were 
shining  as  she  recounted  it. 

Then  his  father  came  out  upon  the 
back  steps  and  called  them  in  to  break- 
fast They  started  for  the  cabin  to- 
gether. 

"  If  you  like,"  she  volunteered,  still 
full  of  her  subject,  "  if  you  like,  I  will 
show  you  after  breakfast  how  I  did  the 
balcony  scene."  She  was  looking  up  to 
him  from  under  the  long  lashes.  He 
acquiesced. 

23 


THE   GOLDEN  CHAIN 

And  after  breakfast  they  went  out 
again.  She  led  the  way  back  to  the 
corral.  There  must  be  a  balcony,  she 
told  him,  and  she  had  seen  an  empty 
stall  with  a  manger.  She  found  a  foot- 
hold and  climbed  upon  it,  getting  her 
balance. 

"Now,"  she  admonished,  "begin." 

They  had  brought  out  the  ancient 
volume  of  plays,  and  he  was  to  read  the 
lines  of  Romeo.  He  had  his  thumb  at 
the  place  and  opened  to  it  now,  standing 
down  below  her,  his  boots  ankle  deep 
in  the  bedding.  He  grew  burning  red 
under  his  bronze,  to  the  roots  of  his 
hair.  But  he  began. 

"  He  jests  at  scars  who  never  felt  a 
wound''' 

He  stopped.  She  had  had  her  back 
to  him  —  in  default  of  a  curtain.  She 
turned  now,  slowly  and  languidly,  lean- 
ing one  arm  upon  the  partition  which  di- 
vided the  stall  from  that  in  which  the 
sorrel  cow-pony  munched  and  swished 
its  tail  unconcernedly.  Her  eyes  were 
24 


THE   GOLDEN  CHAIN 

gazing  dreamily  down,  and  Dudley  look- 
ing into  them  grew  more  scarlet  and  em- 
barrassed, and  forgot  to  go  on.  She 
recalled  him.  He  returned  to  the  book 
with  alacrity. 

"  But  soft  what  light  through  yonder 
window  breaks  it  is  the  east  and  Juliet 
is  the  sun." 

He  hurried  on  without  punctuation, 
taking  his  breath  through  his  nose  when 
he  had  to,  and  bringing  up  winded  and 
by  no  means  impassioned,  at  the  final 
sigh. 

"  O  that  I  were  a  glove  tip  on  that 
hand  that  I  might  touch  that  cheek" 

There  trembled  down  to  him,  just 
audible,  and  like  the  night  wind  from 
out  the  Valle  del  Muerto,  through  the 
pines,  a  soft  "  Ay  me  !  " 

Another  full  inch  of  close  pressed 
printing.  It  was  out  of  proportion,  he 
felt.  But  he  attacked  it  and  came 
out  resolutely  —  sailing  upon  "  the 
bosom  of  the  air  "  with  much  the  light- 
ness with  which  he  stood  firmly  planted 
25 


THf.    GOLDEN  CHAIN 

in  the  litter  of  the  stall.  And  then  the 
words  which,  for  him,  had  never  been 
worn  to  the  threads  of  ridicule  and 
bathos. 

"O  Romeo,  Romeo,"  the  tears  were 
on  her  lashes,  "wherefore  art  thou 
Romeo  ?  " 

There  was  no  need  of  painted  canvas 
trees  for  her,  nor  of  unsteady  balcony  to 
rock  with  the  movements  of  her  arms, 
nor  of  curtains  behind  which  to  disap- 
pear. Orchard,  balustrade  of  stone, 
draperies  —  all  were  there  in  that  mind 
which  is  ever  "its  own  place."  And 
even  for  him  there  hardly  lacked  the 
trimmed  shrubs  and  tall  trees,  grav- 
elled walk  and  high  wall  of  the  cut  on 
the  front  page  of  the  book.  It  was  not 
the  roof  of  the  stall  above  them,  but  a 
night  sky. 

"  —  and  I  no  longer  be  a  Cafulet" 
she  finished. 

She  waited,  and  realising  that  she  did, 
he  broke  the  interval  of  sound  with  his 
own  voice,  and  learned  thereby  how  one 
26 


THE    GOLDEN  CHAIN 

may  stun  one's  loveliest  thoughts  and 
cause  to  vanish  those  aspirations  which 
have  no  name,  with  the  dull  blow  of 
one's  heavy  words. 

"  Take  all  myself"  she  breathed  in 
answer  to  him. 

The  spell  of  the  voice,  of  the  thin, 
little  outstretched  arms,  of  the  entreat- 
ing eyes,  was  full  upon  him,  the  real 
and  commonplace  world  had  melted 
away.  It  was  brought  back.  A  giggle, 
a  choked  and  subdued  giggle,  came 
from  behind  them.  The  beautiful  fancy 
shivered  into  a  million  bits,  and  he 
whirled  around  furious  and  ashamed 
and  mortified.  His  brother  perched  on 
a  post  of  the  corral  and  grinned  cheer- 
fully. 

•'  They're  waiting  for  you,  miss,"  he 
suggested ;  "  they've  been  looking  for 
you  everywhere  this  last  ten  minutes." 

She  was  down  at  once  without  any 
ladder  of  ropes.  And  if  the  two  boys 
were  conscious  of  absurdity  in  the  situa- 
tion, she  clearly  was  not.  She  climbed 
27 


THE    GOLDEN  CHAIN 

up  beside  her  uncle  on  the  seat  of  the 
wagon  which  was  drawn  by  the  spike 
team.  The  other,  with  her  aunt  and 
Lewis,  had  already  pulled  out. 

She  leaned  over  and  held  out  her 
hand  to  young  Keble.  "  Good-by,"  she 
said.  She  was  smiling  with  no  more 
than  her  usual  hint  of  pensiveness. 
But,  as  for  him,  he  was  not  happy  as 
she  drew  her  fingers  from  his  big,  hard 
grasp.  The  wagon  started  and  rattled 
away,  the  dog  trotting  after  it.  He 
stood  where  she  had  left  him  and  saw 
the  last  flutter  of  the  brown  linen  skirt 
at  the  turn  in  the  road  beyond  the  clear- 
ing. Then  the  pine  trunks  hid  her  from 
sight. 


28 


CHAPTER  III 

should  be  across  the  fair 
meadows  of  Life  that  Youth 
follows  its  first  Love  —  to  the 
song  of  birds  and  over  myriad 
flowers.  But  it  was  across  the  Valley  of 
Death  that  Dudley  Keble  followed  his  — 
by  the  double  track  of  wagon  wheels 
sunk  in  the  scorching  sands.  The  sun 
was  a  disk  of  fire  in  the  sky,  the  air 
simmered  in  heat  waves  and  seemed 
to  sing.  Away,  far  beyond  the  miles 
upon  miles  of  sparse,  cloying-sweet 
greasewood  and  glaring  dust,  rose  the 
barrier  mountains  like  great,  deep,  un- 
polished sapphires,  set  in  the  desert's  raw 
gold.  Yucca  stalks  and  cacti  and  palo 
verde  stood  above  the  lower  bushes  here 
and  there.  From  time  to  time  dead 
29 


THE   GOLDEN  CHAIN 

steers  were  beside  the  road,  and  the  hide 
had  dried  on  their  skeletons.  The  black 
sockets  of  their  eyes  stared  with  a  hollow 
questioning — which  had  no  answer.  Liz- 
ards whisked  from  behind  small  stones 
or  under  sage  clumps,  and  horned  toads 
gave  bright  looks  around  as  they  scuttled 
along,  leaving  the  trail  of  their  peaked 
tails  thread-like  in  the  sand.  A  coyote 
trotted  away  from  the  road,  and  then, 
when  he  was  far  enough  off,  waited, 
coming  back  afterward  to  investigate 
the  hoof  tracks  —  a  wretched,  thin,  grey 
little  beast  getting  his  mean  existence 
from  death,  he  and  the  black  crow  the 
spirits  of  the  desert  places. 

Prairie  dogs  scurried  in  and  out  of 
their  holes,  ground  owls  perched  on  their 
knolls,  or  a  hawk  sat  on  a  branch,  still 
as  stone  except  for  its  bright,  blinking 
eyes.  And  the  heat  quivered  always 
pitilessly,  until  the  dog,  following  at 
the  sorrel  pony's  heels,  whined  with 
the  sting  of  its  seared  eyes  and  burned 
feet,  and  with  the  pain  of  thirst.  It  had 
30 


THE   GOLDEN  CHAIN 

been  born  to  the  canon  and  the  shade 
of  pines. 

Dudley  rode  on,  lopsided  in  his  saddle, 
his  reins  hanging  loose,  his  sombrero 
pulled  far  down,  his  pony's  head  drooped, 
and  its  neck  swinging  limply  from  side  to 
side,  the  sweat  caked  in  salt  on  its  flanks 
and  withers  and  belly,  and  behind  its 
ears.  They  passed  an  Indian  and  his 
squaw  and  papoose,  following  a  trail  to 
the  agency.  The  Indian  nodded  and 
grunted.  Then  it  was  a  Mexican  riding 
alone.  He  smiled,  pleased,  and  spoke  a 
"buenos  dias."  They  both  reined  up. 
Where  was  he  going  ?  the  Gringo  asked. 
The  man  nodded  forward,  "Adelante," 
he  said.  And  where  did  he  come  from  ? 
His  head  motioned  backward,  "  Detras  " 
— "  going  ahead,"  coming  "  from  be- 
hind "  ;  it  was  his  race  which  had  learned 
the  philosophy  of  existence. 

He  rode  on  with  an  "  adios."  Dudley 
turned  in  the  saddle  and  called  after 
him.  How  much  farther  was  it  to  Tierra 
Blanca  ? 


THE    GOLDEN  CHAIN 

The  Mexican  pulled  up  his  pony  with 
a  cruel  jerk  of  the  spade  bit.  "  Como 
cuatro  horas,  sefior,"  he  answered. 

"  Muchisimas  gracias,"  said  Dudley, 
and  kept  on  his  way.  Four  hours  more 
—  if  the  Greaser  knew,  which  it  was 
more  than  probable  he  did  not.  He  came 
from  behind,  he  was  going  ahead  —  and 
time  was  a  thing  without  meaning. 

Dudley  touched  the  pony  with  the 
fringed  end  of  the  lariat  that  hung  from 
his  cantle,  and  it  went  a  little  faster. 
The  double  tracks  were  always  there 
on  the  road  before  him,  cutting  it  until 
it  merged  in  the  distance  of  scrub  and 
grey  sage. 

It  was  three  o'clock,  he  judged  by 
the  sun,  when  he  stopped  at  the  one 
ranch  house  by  the  way,  —  a  mud  hut  on 
an  alkali  patch  of  earth,  —  where  was  a 
windmill  and  a  leaky  water-trough.  The 
pony  sucked  at  the  water  noisily  and 
long.  A  dozen  hens  droned  and  crooned 
to  the  heat.  Three  savage  dogs  came 
walking  and  snarling  around  his  own, 
32 


THE    GOLDEN  CHAIN 

but  the  latter  was  too  nearly  perishing 
to  heed  them.  Having  lapped  up  all  it 
could  drink,  it  dropped  down  in  a  puddle, 
and  panted.  A  Mexican  woman,  wrapped 
to  the  eyes  in  a  black  shawl,  crouched  in 
the  narrow  shadow  of  the  house.  There 
was  a  litter  of  cigarette  ends  and  burned 
matches  around  her  on  the  ground. 
Five  children  were  beside  her,  and  a 
man  came  to  the  doorway  and  stood 
waiting.  To  the  Gringo's  "  cuanto 
cuesta  ? "  he  answered  that  it  should 
be  what  he  pleased. 

"Lo  que  quiere;"  and  he  accepted 
a  two-bit  piece  for  the  priceless  water 
of  a  parched  land,  which  he  was  allowing 
to  go  to  waste  out  of  the  trough  because 
he  was  too  lazy  to  remedy  the  matter. 

Would  the  sefior  go  in  and  rest  ? 
And  the  Mexican  pointed  to  the  black 
interior  from  which  issued  the  inevitable 
odour  of  chili  and  cigarettes. 

Dudley  refused.     Had  there  been  two 
wagons  by  here?     He  described  them 
and  their  occupants. 
D  33 


THE    GOLDEN  CHAIN 

"  Si,  senor,"  there  had.  "  Race  como 
una  hora." 

Only  an  hour  ahead!  He  wheeled 
about  with  a  brief  "  good-by  "  and  con- 
tinued on  his  road.  The  dog  looked 
piteously  after  him,  then  rose  slowly  to 
its  sore  feet  and  went  too.  After  a 
while  he  took  mercy  upon  it,  and  reach- 
ing down,  swung  it  up  and  across  his 
saddle  bow.  And  still  the  Valle  del 
Muerto  stretched  on  and  on ;  but  finally 
there  rose  a  few  low,  stony  swells,  and 
the  sand  grew  less  deep.  Jack-rabbits 
darted  out  of  the  bushes  and  bounded 
away,  their  long  ears  acock.  The  tracks 
of  the  wagons  almost  disappeared  ex- 
cept in  the  soft  bottoms  of  now  dry 
arroyos,  where  the  sand  was  black 
streaked,  perhaps  with  washed  gold. 
Ahead  he  could  see  two  moving  specks 
of  white,  and  presently  cottonwoods  — 
fresh,  pale  green  trees  of  the  barrens, 
growing  wherever  the  least  little  muddy 
acequia  will  give  their  roots  moisture, 
rustling  their  silver-faced  leaves  coolly 
34 


THE   GOLDEN  CHAIN 

in  the  merest  breath  of  a  breeze. 
Where  the  cottonwoods  were,  there  was 
the  town,  and  before  long  he  could  dis- 
tinguish the  white  houses.  After  forty 
miles  of  desert,  Tierra  Blanca  was  just 
ahead. 

He  rode  into  the  main  street  and  along 
it,  until  he  came  to  where  a  half-dozen 
scrawny,  overtrapped  horses,  tied  to  a 
hitching-rail  in  front  of  an  abode,  an- 
nounced unmistakably  a  saloon.  He  went 
up  to  a  Mexican  who  stood  in  the  door- 
way leaning  against  the  lintel,  soft  eyed, 
his  silver-twisted  sombrero  pulled  well 
down,  a  zarape,  gay  and  multi-coloured, 
flung  over  his  shoulders  with  a  grace  no 
courtier  could  have  surpassed.  He  was 
from  across  the  border.  Had  he  seen 
two  green-bodied  wagons  pass  ? 

He  took  a  puff  of  his  brown  cigarette. 
Yes,  he  had  seen  them. 

Which  way  had  they  gone  ? 

"  For  alia,"  he  signed  with  his  head, 
as  requiring  less  exertion  than  the  out- 
stretching of  a  hand. 
35 


THE    GOLDEN  CHAIN 

"The  next  street?" 

"  Si,  senor."     Dudley  rode  on. 

He  found  them  in  a  few  minutes. 
The  wagons  had  stopped  at  an  empty 
space  in  the  shade  of  a  circle  of  cotton- 
woods  —  what  answered  to  the  plaza  of 
the  town.  The  horses  were  unhitched 
and  hobbled  out,  and  the  men  were 
busy  with  the  contents  of  the  outfit. 
But  Felicia  sat  on  a  gnarled  root  by  the 
edge  of  the  tinkling  acequia,  her  hands 
clasped  around  her  knees,  looking  down 
the  street  toward  the  church.  Until  he 
stopped  in  front  of  her,  she  did  not  see 
him.  Then  she  jumped  to  her  feet  in 
surprise,  her  face  questioning  and  — 
lighting.  How  had  he  come? 

As  she  herself,  he  told  her  —  by  the 
Valle  del  Muerto. 

And  why?  The  answer  was  in  his 
direct  and  steady  blue  eyes.  Her  own 
shifted  and  fell.  She  fingered  the  leath- 
ern rosette  and  tassel  on  the  headstall  of 
his  bridle.  But  he  had  not  looked  away, 
and  she  knew  it.  She  met  the  eyes 
36 


THE    GOLDEN  CHAIN 

again,  unwillingly,  compelled  to  it,  and 
smiling  rather  nervously. 

He  sat  very  upright  for  a  moment. 
Then  he  drew  up  his  slack  reins.  A 
corral  and  fodder  had  to  be  found  for 
his  horse.  He  would  be  back  directly 
—  would  she  wait?  Her  answer  was 
not  in  words,  but  in  one  of  her  compre- 
hensive gestures  which  said  sometimes 
more.  She  threw  out  her  hands  with  a 
sweep  —  here  was  the  town,  and  beyond 
was  the  desert;  she  could  not  but  remain 
somewhere  near  by. 

A  small,  full  toned  bell  began  to  ring  on 
top  of  the  church,  and  soon  there  came 
from  every  direction  women  wrapped  in 
black  shawls,  some  few  in  the  graceful 
draperies  of  dull  blue  and  brown  rebozos 
— men  ragged  and  lithe,  occasionally  with 
zarapes  or  blankets  over  their  shoulders, 
and  children,  all  going  in  the  same  direc- 
tion. A  fat  and  untidy  priest  came  out 
from  his  house  and  entered  the  build- 
ing. The  men  lifted  their  hats,  the 
children  and  some  of  the  women  made 
37 


THE   GOLDEN  CHAIN 

the  movement  of  kissing  his  hand  as  he 
passed. 

Dudley  returned  on  foot.  Was  he  a 
Catholic  ?  Felicia  asked  him.  He  re- 
pulsed the  idea.  He  was  the  son  of  a  New 
England  father,  the  descendant  of  Puri- 
tans, of  a  family  which,  though  large, 
and  old  as  New  England  itself,  had  never, 
throughout  its  remotest  offshoot,  even 
bowed  the  knee  to  the  Scarlet  Woman. 
And  the  inherited  prejudice  was  added 
to  by  that  acquired  in  a  country  where, 
generally  speaking,  only  the  alien  and 
ignorant  Mexican  element  was  under 
the  guidance  of  priests. 

But  the  girl,  child  and  companion  of 
those  to  whom  the  name  of  God  was, 
at  most,  one  with  which  to  curse,  and 
whose  souls  concerned  them  not  at  all, 
was  emotional  and  imaginative,  and  at 
that  age,  which  is  readiest  for  religious 
enthusiasms  if  presented  in  picturesque 
form.  A  priest  in  the  last  town  at  which 
the  troupe  had  stopped  had  made  the 
most  of  two  days  and  had  sown  seeds 
38 


THE    GOLDEN  CHAIN 

that  needed  only  a  little  cultivation  to 
spring  up  into  conversion. 

She  was  thinking  of  becoming  a 
Catholic  herself,  she  told  Dudley  now, 
with  a  little  unconscious  air  of  sanctity. 
His  opinion  of  the  faith  underwent  a 
slight  modification  forthwith.  It  was 
some  dia  de  fiesta.  She  was  going  to 
vespers.  Would  he  go  with  her  ?  He 
hesitated  yet.  Perhaps  not  the  mark 
of  the  Beast,  but  surely  that  of  the 
Fool  was  upon  a  man  who  should  bow 
before  that  altar.  For  women,  possi- 
bly—  But  she  was  over  the  acequia 
and  looking  back,  waiting.  He  crossed 
the  ditch,  too,  and  the  Rubicon  of  his 
prejudices,  and  followed  her  through 
the  big  door  into  the  cool,  shadowy 
interior. 

She  went  forward,  up  the  aisle, 
between  the  line  of  rough,  wooden 
benches,  and  knelt  on  the  earth  floor, 
crossing  herself.  He  knelt,  too,  but 
on  one  knee  only,  by  way  of  a  com- 
promise. 

39 


THE    GOLDEN  CHAIN 

The  church  was  adobe,  whitewashed, 
not  only  outside,  but  within  as  well. 
In  the  rafters  and  the  choir  balcony,  too 
insecure  and  worm-eaten  now  to  hold 
any  weight,  hundreds  of  swallows  nested, 
flying  in  and  out  and  twittering  shrilly. 
The  main  altar  was  gay  with  coloured 
mosquito  netting  —  arsenic  green  and 
magenta  pink,  with  paper  and  wax 
flowers  in  vases.  Over  it  all  were  looped 
in  long  festoons,  strings  of  alternate 
powder  puffs  and  red  chilis.  At  one 
of  the  two  side  altars  was  the  town's 
patron  saint.  It  was  he  who  brought 
rain,  dearest  of  benefactions,  to  this 
land  of  parched  and  blinding  white 
soil,  and  of  many  a  drought.  Dudley, 
from  where  he  knelt,  could  see  him,  a 
figure  of  wood  some  three  feet  high, 
attired  in  a  cocked  hat,  a  swallow-tail 
coat  of  blue  with  brass  buttons,  and  a 
frilled  shirt  and  stock.  He  had  knee- 
breeches  and  pumps,  and  he  drove  a 
span  of  wooden  oxen  by  cotton-ribbon 
reins.  Pendent  to  his  wrist,  at  his  side, 
40 


THE   GOLDEN  CHAIN 

was  another  figure,  smaller  still,  a  tiny 
image  of  Napoleon  Bonaparte,  cocked 
hat,  hand  in  waistcoat,  all  complete. 
There  were  many  offerings  at  this  shrine. 

The  other  altar  was  the  Virgin's. 
Only  the  grotesqueness,  the  absurdity, 
of  it  reached  the  boy's  matter-of-fact, 
practical  mind.  That  faith  might  lend 
a  certain  dignity  to  even  strings  of 
powder  puffs  and  red  chilis,  and  to 
carved  and  painted  mannikins,  it  was 
not  given  him  to  realise.  He  had,  at 
the  best,  only  a  good  deal  of  contempt 
for  these  men,  women,  and  children  of 
a  gentle,  mysterious  race,  kneeling 
there  in  the  twilight,  mingling  the  mur- 
murs of  their  soft  voices  with  the  sleepy 
twittering  of  the  swallows  in  the  vegas 
overhead. 

On  one  of  those  women  his  eyes 
stopped  and  rested.  He  recognised 
her.  It  was  Josefina  Arcos.  Two 
years  before  he  had  known  her.  He 
had  come  to  Tierra  Blanca  with  some 
cow-boys,  whom  he  had  been  helping 


THE    GOLDEN  CHAIN 

at  a  round-up.  They  had  urged  him, 
and  it  was  to  have  been  his  first  de- 
bauch. As  such,  however,  it  had  ended 
almost  before  it  had  fairly  begun. 
What  the  older  men  had  pictured  to 
him  as  the  end,  worth  any  price  he 
might  be  so  fortunate  as  to  be  able 
to  pay,  worth  all  the  toil  it  might  take 
to  amass  that  price,  he  had  found  Dead 
Sea  fruit  at  nearly  the  first  taste.  It 
was  not,  as  he  had  informed  those  who 
had  undertaken  his  sophistication,  all 
that  it  was  cracked  up  to  be ;  and  if  it 
were  their  idea  of  a  good  time,  they 
were  welcome  to  it,  but  for  himself  it 
seemed  to  lack  attraction.  He  had  ex- 
pected to  be  scoffed  at,  or  condemned 
as  a  prude,  but  neither  had  followed. 
It  was  a  difference  of  taste,  and  they 
were  prepared  to  admit  it  as  such. 
Possibly  he  had  gained  rather  than  lost 
in  their  estimation. 

For  a  week,  however,  he  had  stayed 
around  Tierra  Blanca,  mainly  through 
disinclination  to  go  back  to  the  cabin  in 
42 


THE   GOLDEN  CHAIN 

the  clearing,  and  to  the  atmosphere  of 
his  mother's  complaints  and  bickerings 
at  his  father's  scholarly  ineptitude.  But 
Pepita  Arcos  had  had  much  to  do  with 
it  as  well.  She  had  been  a  very  pretty 
little  Mexican,  some  fifteen  years  old, 
who  had  not  only  accepted  his  attentions, 
but  sought  them.  His  friends  of  wider 
experience,  having  observed  her  during 
one  baile,  had  suggested  to  him  that  she 
was  neither  more  nor  less  than  throwing 
herself  at  his  head.  It  had  already  be- 
gun to  be  borne  in  upon  him  that  such 
was  the  case.  He  liked  her  more  than 
a  little.  Her  great  brown  eyes  were 
full  of  a  tragic  sadness  for  all  that  her 
little  soul  was  happy  and  trivial.  She 
had  attracted  him.  The  morals  all  about 
him  were  easy  to  say  the  least  of  it.  He 
had  had  no  reason  to  suppose  that  the 
girl  was  any  better  than  she  should  have 
been;  that  if  he  were  to  love  and  leave 
her,  it  would  be  the  first  time  she  had 
been  loved  and  left.  He  had  met  her 
advances  halfway  thereafter  —  and  then 
43 


THE   GOLDEN  CHAIN 

he  had  found  the  error  in  his  conclu- 
sions ;  had  found  that  she  was  really  in 
love  with  him,  and  that  she  was  not  as 
yet,  at  any  rate,  to  be  judged  by  the 
company  she  kept,  into  which  her  own 
sordid,  debased  old  mother  urged  her. 
Her  first  irrevocable  step  along  the  road 
to  destruction  was  yet  to  be  made. 
And  young  Keble  had  had  no  mind  to 
be  the  one  to  start  her.  Some  one  else 
would  do  it,  he  supposed,  sooner  or  later, 
but  he  himself  would  not.  He  had 
given  her  to  understand  as  much,  and 
also  that  he  intended  going  away.  Her 
anguish  and  despair  had  put  him  through 
a  trying  ordeal  —  one  through  which  he 
had  no  wish  ever  to  be  obliged  to  pass 
again.  In  a  moment  of  remorse  and 
pity  he  had  thought  of  marrying  her. 
But  he  was  too  clear  headed  not  to  fore- 
see the  results.  She  was  a  Mexican  — 
and  he  did  not  love  her. 

If  he  had  not  fancied  the  easy  de- 
bauchery of  the  other  cow-boys,  he  had 
liked  this   less.      His  week  in   Tierra 
44 


THE    GOLDEN  CHAIN 

Blanca  had  not,  he  felt,  been  a  success. 
He  was  so  kind  to  the  little  Mexican  that, 
not  being  accustomed  to  kindness,  her 
heart  broke.  Yet  he  said  good-by,  reso- 
lute in  his  determination,  and  left  the 
town.  Since  then  he  had  been  in  other 
towns,  but  it  was  the  first  time  he  had 
returned  to  Tierra  Blanca. 

He  wondered  now,  as  he  knelt  there 
on  one  knee,  his  hat  in  his  hand,  and 
studied  the  face  showing  from  under 
the  black  shawl,  whether  Josefina  had 
become  after  all,  that  which  her  abomi- 
nable old  mother  had  tried  to  make  of 
her.  It  was  probable,  he  decided. 

When  the  short  sendee  was  over  and 
the  priest  and  his  small  acolyte  had  left 
the  chancel,  the  figures,  grown  shadowy 
in  the  gathering  twilight,  rose  from  the 
floor  and  the  benches  and  went  shuf- 
fling out.  But  Felicia  crossed  over  to  the 
altar  of  Mary.  Josefina  had  preceded  her 
and  the  two  knelt  there,  side  by  side. 
Felicia  had  put  a  shawl  over  her  own 
head,  but  a  grey  one,  not  black  like 
45 


THE   GOLDEN  CHAIN 

those  of  all  the  Mexican  women.  He 
could  see  her  face  from  under  it,  white 
in  the  gloom,  and  upturned.  The  little 
Mexican's  head  was  dropped. 

As  he  stood  in  the  aisle  and  waited 
he  looked  at  the  statue  of  the  Virgin. 
It  was  much  like  many  another  that  he 
had  seen,  but  around  its  neck  hung  a 
golden  chain,  thick  as  a  small  rope,  and 
with  pendent  ornaments  of  gold,  or  of 
brass,  as  he  supposed  it,  since  the  com- 
bined wealth  of  the  devout  of  Tierra 
Blanca  would  hardly  have  sufficed  for 
the  purchasing  of  the  finer  metal. 

The  chain  was  of  gold,  nevertheless, 
and  it  was  the  votive  offering  of  a  se- 
nora  whose  husband  had  found  riches 
in  the  ground  not  far  from  the  town. 
For  more  than  a  year  it  had  hung  about 
the  Virgin's  neck  day  and  night,  and 
not  even  one  of  the  many  desperadoes 
who  came  and  went  at  Tierra  Blanca 
had  attempted  to  make  away  with  it. 
As  for  the  faithful,  it  was  held  by  them 
in  great  and  peculiar  veneration. 
46 


THE   GOLDEN  CHAIN 

The  swallows  in  the  rafters  and  choir 
were  chirruping  sleepily,  and  the  church 
was  almost  dark.  Josefina  arose  from 
her  knees.  She  came  toward  him, 
glanced  up,  and  stopped,  her  tapolo 
falling  back  from  her  head,  showing 
the  thick  hair  parted  low  over  her  fore- 
head, and  hanging  in  two  braids.  Her 
hand  went  to  her  heart. 

"  Buenas  tardes,  Pepita,"  he  whis- 
pered. She  looked  quickly  back  to  the 
girl  still  kneeling  in  front  of  the  side 
altar,  then  up  into  his  face  again.  Her 
lips  tried  to  form  an  answering  "  buenas 
tardes,"  but  it  was  quite  inaudible.  She 
drew  the  rebozo  up  and  close  together, 
and  glided  out  —  a  shadow  through  the 
shadows. 

After  a  moment  Felicia  stood  up  and 
came  to  him,  and  they  went  together 
out  of  the  church,  into  the  red  light  of 
the  sunset. 


47 


CHAPTER  IV 

|H  E  main  street  of  Tierra  Blanca 
was  much  more  crowded  than 
usual,  for  its  whole  length  of 
perhaps  a  thousand  yards.  It 
was  a  dark  night,  but  lanterns  were 
hung  against  the  lintels  of  some  of  the 
houses,  and  a  half-dozen  torches  flared 
smokily  in  front  of  the  music  hall  in  which 
the  performance  was  to  take  place.  The 
lurid  light  glistened  redly  on  the  leaves 
of  the  rows  of  cottonwoods  and  on  the 
ripples  of  the  acequia  beside  which  the 
trees  grew.  There  might  have  been 
five  or  six  hundred  in  all,  walking  to 
and  fro  in  the  aimlessness  of  waiting. 
Some  were  Mexicans  —  the  majority  — 
and  some  were  whites,  inhabitants  of 
the  town  and  the  neighbouring  ranches, 
48 


THE    GOLDEN  CHAIN 

prospectors,  miners,  and  cow-boys.  Dark 
men  with  bright  tinsel  on  their  big  hats, 
with  gay  blankets  swathing  them  to  their 
chins,  the  points  of  yellow  light  of  their 
cigarettes  no  more  fiery  than  the  two 
points  that  peered  from  under  their 
sombrero  brims  —  women,  dark  too, 
with  bows  or  paper  flowers  in  their 
black  hair,  sometimes  with  many-hued 
shawls  covering  their  breasts  and  white 
gowns,  laughing  —  with  teeth  and  eyes 
that  flashed  in  the  weird  light.  There 
were  other  women,  less  dark  of  skin, 
but  often  more  so  of  soul,  flaunting  and 
playing  their  parts.  And  there  were 
men,  too,  of  the  fairer  race,  taller,  more 
massive,  as  a  rule,  almost  as  picturesque, 
with  their  boots  and  showy  ties,  and 
even,  in  instances,  gaudy  shirts.  They 
moved  to  and  fro,  in  and  out,  with  some- 
thing the  regularity  of  a  peasant  chorus 
in  an  opera.  Four  Mexicans  marched 
up  and  down  the  middle  of  the  street, 
picking  and  sweeping  at  wire-stringed 
guitars  and  a  banjo,  singing  love  songs. 
E  49 


THE   GOLDEN  CHAIN 

They  tinkled  the  first  strain  of  "La 
Golondrina,"  and  many  voices  took  it 
up  and  swelled  it,  sweet  and  yearning, 
to  the  deep  sky. 

"  Adonde  ird  veloz  y  fatigada, 
La  Golondrina  que  de  aqui  se  va 
O,  si  en  el  aire  gemira  extraviada 
Buscando  abrigo,  y  no  lo  encontrara 
Junto  a  mi  lecho,  le  pondre*  su  nido 
En  donde  puede  la  estacion  pasar. 
Tambien  yo  estoy  en  la  region  perdido, 
O,  cielo  santo,  y  sin  poder  volar." 

Felicia,  standing  with  Keble  in  the 
shadow  of  a  wall,  away  from  the  jostling 
crowd,  had  joined  in  with  the  plaintive 
words.  There  was  a  pause,  then  they 
began  again. 

"  Deje*  tambien  mi  patria  idolotrada 
Esa  mansion  que  me  mir6  nacer. 
Mi  vida  es  hoy  errante  y  angustiada 
E  ya  no  puedo  a  mi  casa  volver 
Ah  !  ven  querida,  amada  peregrina 
Mi  corazon  al  tuyo  estrechare* 
Oire*  tu  canto  tierna  golondrina 
Recordare"  mi  patria  y  llorareV' 

50 


THE    GOLDEN  CHAIN 

He  listened  to  the  immature  young 
voice,  with  its  rich,  low  notes  full  of  the 
thrill  of  the  song's  longing  for  the  aban- 
doned home.  Yet  he  knew  that  she  had 
never  had  a  home,  that  her  life  of  wan- 
dering had  begun  when  she  had  been 
born,  fatherless,  in  a  tent  on  the  out- 
skirts of  a  mining  camp.  She  had  been 
telling  him  of  it,  as  they  had  stood  in  the 
darkness  and  watched  the  people  pass- 
ing and  repassing  beyond  the  row  of 
trees.  And  she  went  on  with  it  now, 
when  the  song  was  ended  :  how  that  her 
mother  had  died  there  in  the  tent,  and 
she  herself,  at  the  age  of  two  months, 
had  made  her  first  appearance  upon  a 
stage,  beginning  even  then  the  life  of 
the  itinerant  player. 

He  had  no  need  to  be  told  what  it 
meant  to  follow  that  profession  over  the 
desert  and  through  the  mountains,  in 
rough  new  towns,  among  miners  and 
cow-boys  and  desperadoes,  and  with 
such  a  woman  as  the  aunt  for  only  coun- 
sellor. She  must,  he  realised,  have  known 
51 


THE   GOLDEN  CHAIN 

more  than  once  already  the  hard  neces- 
sity of  self-protection  and  defence.  But 
that  she  had  met  the  necessity  fairly  and 
come  out  unscathed,  he  would  have  con- 
tended for  against  all  challengers,  as  he 
had  only  that  morning,  contended  for  it 
against  his  ridiculing,  indignant,  and  dis- 
gusted parents. 

A  hand-bell  was  rung  vigorously  in 
front  of  the  music-hall.  It  was  the  sig- 
nal that  the  play  would  soon  be  begin- 
ning, that  the  doors  were  opening  to 
admit  whosoever  had  a  quarter  of  a  dol- 
lar to  pay,  or  fifty  cents  for  the  reserved 
benches  at  the  front. 

"  I  must  go,"  she  said,  with  a  note  of 
reluctance. 

He  put  out  his  two  hands  and  caught 
hers,  drawing  her  to  him.  "  Don't,"  he 
said  unsteadily.  The  light  from  a 
torch  which  some  one  was  carrying  by 
fell  on  them,  behind  him,  making  a  radi- 
ance through  his  thick,  light  hair,  and 
full  on  her  protesting,  half-frightened 
face.  He  dropped  the  hands  instantly. 
52 


THE    GOLDEN  CHAIN 

She  moved  away  and  he  stooped  to  take 
up  his  soft  felt  sombrero  from  where  he 
had  laid  it  on  the  ground. 

When  she  was  out,  well  beyond  the 
shadow  line,  she  stopped  and  looked 
back.  "  Be  sure  to  sit  well  in  front," 
she  called  to  him,  "  and  to  wait  for  me 
there  afterward." 

He  answered  something  indistinctly. 
She  was  not  angry  with  him,  then.  But 
he  was  angry  with  himself,  and  he  stood 
still,  turning  the  sombrero  around  and 
around  by  the  brim,  frowning  and  kick- 
ing at  a  stone.  He  had  never  meant  to 
use  the  course  with  her  that  one  used 
with  the  others,  that  he  had  used  with 
little  Pepita  Arcos  two  years  before. 
He  had  evolved  theories  of  life  and  con- 
duct for  himself,  unaided  by  any  pre- 
cept or  example,  and  one  of  them  was 
that  no  man  who  was  not  either  soft 
and  a  poor  sort,  or  else  coarse-na- 
tured,  attempted  with  a  good  woman, 
to  resort  to  kisses  and  the  like  until  he 
should  have  asked  her  promise  of 
53 


THE   GOLDEN  CHAIN 

marriage.  With  the  others  —  he  took 
that  easily  —  any  course  was  justifiable 
there. 

He  jammed  the  hat  down  on  his  head, 
pulled  it  over  his  brows  savagely,  and 
in  a  frame  of  mind  of  much  disgust  with 
himself  went  into  the  crowd. 

He  was  not  oblivious  to  the  glances 
of  many  of  the  women  gathered  around 
the  door  and  reading  the  Spanish  and 
English  bill  posters  in  red  and  blue 
which  were  placarded  against  the  wall. 
He  shrugged  off  good-humouredly  fin- 
gers that  touched  his  broad  shoulders, 
or  were  laid  on  his  arms  as  he  pushed 
his  way  through  the  press  until  he  stood 
directly  in  front  of  the  door.  He 
dropped  his  four-bit  piece  into  Lewis's 
palm  and  made  for  the  middle  of  the 
long  bench  directly  in  front  of  the  stage. 
The  room  filled  to  overflowing  directly, 
and  not  more  than  half  of  the  expectant 
public  could  get  in.  Plays  did  not  hap- 
pen in  Tierra  Blanca  every  week.  All 
the  benches  were  crowded,  and  as  there 
54 


THE   GOLDEN  CHAIN 

were  not  enough  seats,  many  had  brought 
their  own  folding  chairs,  camp-stools, 
and  even  boxes,  and  had  seated  them- 
selves where  they  chose.  As  for  the 
rest,  they  crowded  against  the  walls, 
their  figures  standing  out  in  bold  relief 
of  black  and  bright  colour  against  the 
harsh  white.  The  only  lights  were  two 
bracket  lamps  with  newly  polished  re- 
flectors, and  four  lanterns  in  front  of  the 
flowered-calico  drawing  curtain,  which 
was  hung  across  the  platform. 

Keble  looked  around  for  Josefina 
Arcos.  She  did  not  appear  to  be  in  the 
house.  He  had  hardly  expected  to  see 
her.  The  inquiries  he  had  made  con- 
cerning her,  while  he  had  eaten  his  sup- 
per at  the  restaurant  that  evening,  had 
brought  out  the  information  that  she 
had  gone  —  not  the  way  he  would  have 
supposed,  and  which  her  mother  had 
arranged  for  her,  but  the  way  of  reli- 
gion and  a  quite  superior  sanctity.  She 
was  known  already  as  Santa  Pepita,  and 
was  accredited  with  the  working  of  cer- 
55 


THE   GOLDEN  CHAIN 

tain  miracles,  the  curing  of  the  dis- 
eased and  even  of  the  crippled,  and  the 
bringing  of  rain  by  her  prayers.  Among 
the  Mexican  population  she  was  greatly 
revered  and  implicitly  obeyed  —  the 
power  of  the  padre  himself  being  sec- 
ondary to  hers.  The  thing  was  not  un- 
precedented. Nearer  the  border  there 
dwelt  a  Mexican  girl  who  had  likewise 
attained  wide  fame  and  large  influence 
as  a  saint  among  both  her  own  kind  and 
the  Indians  of  a  formidable  tribe,  and 
who  had  stirred  them  up  to  a  fierce 
conflict  against  the  Mexican  govern- 
ment more  than  once.  Santa  Pepita's 
power  was  used,  however,  it  seemed,  for 
the  promoting  of  peace,  not  of  bloodshed. 

"  Sometime  when  the  rain  goes  back 
on  her,  or  a  cure  don't  work,  she'll 
lose  the  job,"  had  communicated  his 
unregenerate  informant;  "but  so  far 
she's  run  in  luck,  and  what  she  says, 
goes  with  the  Greasers  every  time." 

Lewis,  having  abandoned  the  box 
office,  came  through  the  room  and 
56 


THE    GOLDEN  CHAIN 

climbed  on  to  the  platform,  disappearing 
behind  the  curtain.  It  was  the  only 
stage  entrance  —  except  one  counted  as 
such  two  windows  leading  from  the 
platform  to  the  ground  outside. 

There  was  a  mysterious  sound  of 
moving  and  whispering  behind  the  cur- 
tain, which  keyed  expectation  to  the 
pitch.  Dudley  recalled  his  own  infantile 
conception  of  a  stage.  Once  as  a  very 
small  youngster  he  had  heard  his  father 
and  another  man  talking  together  of  a 
play  upon  a  "  stage."  Having  asked 
for  information  and  been  given  it  pains- 
takingly by  his  father,  he  had  arrived 
at  the  satisfactory  if  somewhat  confused 
conclusion  that  certain  people,  called 
actors,  told  stories  while  they  walked 
about  or  sat  in  a  buckboard,  such  as 
carried  the  mail,  and  went  by  the  cabin 
once  a  week  on  its  way  from  Gold  City 
to  the  Agency.  That  was  the  "  stage  "  ; 
and  several  times  it  had  been  held  up 
by  the  white  men  or  Indians,  and  had 
failed  to  pass  at  the  appointed  time. 
57 


THE   GOLDEN  CHAIN 

There  came  now  a  hush  behind  the 
scenes.  The  bell  rang  and  the  red  folds 
parted  and  were  pulled  slowly  back. 
Some  one  turned  low  the  two  bracket 
lamps. 

The  play  was  in  four  acts,  dealing 
with  the  thrilling  adventures  of  two 
beautiful  damsels  —  the  one  very  good, 
the  other  very  bad — who  loved  the 
same  gallant  cow-boy.  In  the  last  act 
the  attempt  of  the  jealous  rival  upon  the 
life  of  the  virtuous  maiden,  being  foiled, 
the  virtuous  maiden  was  safely  united  to 
the  cow-boy,  and  the  other  was  obliged 
to  content  herself  with  the  villain,  her 
suitor  and  a  faro  dealer  of  blackest  moral 
hue.  It  was  not  Felicia  who  played  the 
part  of  the  virtuous  one,  but  her  aunt, 
radiant  in  pink  muslin.  And  Felicia, 
her  unformed  little  figure  looking  more 
thin  and  slight  than  ever  in  trailing  black, 
her  face,  too,  seeming  more  colourless 
and  more  wistful,  threw  herself  into  the 
part  of  villainess  with  a  laudable  deter- 
mination not  rewarded  by  the  effect. 
58 


THE   GOLDEN  CHAIN 

Dudley's  face  grew  severe  with  vexa- 
tion and  disapproval.  He  refrained 
from  joining  in  the  applause  of  the  noble 
and  admirable  sentiments  uttered  by  the 
blond  maiden  and  always  paused  after, 
expectantly.  He  crushed  his  hat  in  his 
fists. 

The  curtain  came  together  at  the  end, 
and  there  arose  stamping  and  clapping 
and  calling.  The  folds  parted  again  and 
the  four  came  out  to  bow.  Somebody 
in  the  middle  of  the  room  stood  up, 
and,  using  the  two  actresses  to  point  his 
text,  began  a  scathing  of  them,  and  of 
the  other  women  in  the  room,  in  lan- 
guage of  Pentateuchal  force  and  plain- 
ness. Dudley,  turning,  recognised  him 
for  a  man  he  had  seen  before,  a  Mor- 
mon of  hulking,  gigantic  form  and  evil 
countenance,  who  had  his  many  man- 
sioned  ranch  a  few  miles  out  from  the 
town.  Another  man  silenced  him  with 
a  hand  over  his  mouth,  and  several  to- 
gether bundled  him  out.  Then  the 
audience  dispersed,  and  the  room  was 
59 


THE   GOLDEN  CHAIN 

empty  of  all  save  Keble,  who  sat  wait- 
ing. The  two  actors  came  in  front  of 
the  curtain  and  extinguished  the  lan- 
terns, then  stepped  down  among  the 
vacant  benches  and  went  out.  The 
aunt  followed  almost  at  once,  and  Felicia 
a  few  moments  later.  She  had,  in  that 
corner  of  the  platform  which  was  parti- 
tioned off  for  the  women's  dressing-room, 
taken  off  the  black  gown,  symbolical 
of  her  villany,  and  she  was  again  in  the 
old  brown  linen. 

They  went  together  out  into  the 
street.  "  Come  and  get  some  tamales," 
he  suggested.  He  was  hungry  and 
supposed  that  she  must  be.  They 
went  to  a  one-room  adobe  on  the  plaza. 
A  rich,  greasy  odour  came  out  from  it, 
with  puffs  of  the  onion-laden  smoke 
of  frying  things  which  blurred  the  light 
of  the  one  candle  set  in  the  neck  of  a 
bottle.  In  the  hovel  there  was  only  a 
roll  of  bedding  bundled  up  into  a  corner, 
two  stools  of  hide  and  willow,  and  a 
rickety  stove.  In  the  centre  of  the  floor 
60 


THE   GOLDEN  CHAIN 

a  circle  of  blackened  stones  held  a  fire 
of  wood  coals,  on  top  of  which  rested  a 
big  clay  griddle.  Cakes  of  ground  corn 
were  frying  there,  and  on  the  stove  were 
enchiladas  and  tamales  and  chili-con- 
carne  being  kept  warm.  The  air  was 
thick  with  the  pungent,  strong  smells. 
Some  chickens  roosted  on  a  beam  over- 
head. There  were  no  windows  and  only 
one  door.  Through  the  smoke  a  hud- 
dled figure  showed,  sitting  on  the 
ground  behind  the  fire.  And  a  man 
was  turning  the  corn  gorditas. 

Dudley  did  the  buying  while  Felicia 
stood  just  within,  leaning  against  the 
wall  a  little  wearily.  He  came  back 
with  four  tamales,  and  they  went  again 
into  the  outer  night.  The  streets  were 
still  fairly  full.  Couples  sat  close  to- 
gether on  the  ground,  in  the  blackness 
under  the  trees,  others  strolled  back  and 
forth.  From  the  saloons  and  dance 
halls  came  the  sounds  of  violins  and 
guitars,  of  clattering  glass  and  noisy 
carousing.  The  little  village,  had  been 
61 


THE   GOLDEN  CHAIN 

quaint  and  peaceful  enough  —  even  vir- 
tuous, in  its  way — so  long  as  it  had 
been  left  to  its  Mexican  inhabitants. 
But  now  that  it  had  acquired  a  mining 
population  of  whites,  it  was  become 
a  spot  of  general  vice  and  toughness, 
on  a  gala  night  like  this  as  unhidden 
and  open  as  well  could  be.  Dudley 
and  the  girl  went  their  way  in  the 
midst  of  it,  comprehending  it  fully,  but 
not  part  of  it.  And,  finding  the  step 
of  the  church  deserted,  they  sat  down 
upon  it  to  eat  their  tamales. 

"We  are  not  going  on  to-morrow," 
she  told  him.  "  We  will  be  able  to  fill 
another  house."  They  finished  the  ta- 
males, but  still  they  sat  where  they 
were,  silent,  watching  the  moving  fig- 
ures off  on  the  street.  He  would  have 
put  out  his  hand  and  taken  hers  as  it 
lay  on  her  lap  but  for  his  determination 
not  to  make  love  to  her  after  any  such 
fashion.  When  the  time  should  come 

—  and  he  planned  it  for  the  next  night 

—  he  would  ask  her  to  marry  him,  and 

62 


THE   GOLDEN  CHAIN 

if  she  were  willing  to,  they  would  be 
married  at  once.  There  would  be,  so 
far  as  he  could  see,  no  reasons  for 
delay,  and  many  against  it.  That  her 
aunt  and  the  two  men  would  oppose 
any  such  arrangement,  he  foresaw ;  but 
it  was  a  difficulty  he  would  do  what 
he  could  to  meet  when  it  should  present 
itself.  In  the  meanwhile  he  was  happy 
enough  to  have  her  there  beside  him. 

The  carousing  and  singing  and  quar- 
relling in  the  saloons  grew  louder,  the 
passers  much  less  frequent.  She  asked 
the  time  and  he  took  out  his  watch  — 
a  big  gold  one  which  had  been  his 
father's  in  the  New  England  country. 
It  was  two  o'clock.  "  I  must  go,"  she 
said,  rising. 

He  took  her  to  the  wagons.  Neither 
the  men  nor  her  aunt  were  there. 
The  latter,  he  suggested,  might  per- 
haps have  gone  to  look  for  her.  Feli- 
cia was  not  inclined  to  think  so,  and 
she  explained  that  her  whereabouts,  at 
any  hour  of  the  day  or  night,  did  not 
63 


THE   GOLDEN  CHAIN 

concern  Mrs.  Denison,  provided  always 
that  she  was  on  hand  for  the  perform- 
ances. 

The  abomination  of  it  roused  right- 
eous anger  and  horror  in  the  young 
fellow's  breast.  But  he  refrained  from 
comment.  She  could  not  stay  here 
alone,  was  all  he  ventured. 

Why  could  she  not?  she  asked,  a 
little  surprised.  "  I  often  do  it,"  she 
said  —  "  generally." 

"Go  to  bed,"  he  commanded,  with 
authority.  "  I'll  wait  here  until  your 
aunt  conies." 

She  laughed  with  the  easy  cynicism 
of  long  custom.  "  You  may  spend  the 
rest  of  the  night  there,  then,"  she 
warned. 

"Very  well,"  he  answered  deter- 
minedly, "I'll  spend  the  rest  of  the 
night  here."  And  he  helped  her  into 
one  wagon  and  sat  himself  down  upon 
the  tongue  of  the  other  for  the  vigil. 
He  was  spared  it,  however.  Mrs. 
Denison  came  back  almost  at  once,  and 
64 


THE   GOLDEN  CHAIff 

her  husband  with  her.  But  Keble  walked 
away  far  from  satisfied,  and  the  more 
so  that  a  sceptical  query  of  his  mother's 
regarding  the  trio  of  grown  players 
occurred  to  him.  He  was  newly  con- 
scious of  the  desirability  of  propriety, 
though  up  to  then  he  had  been  as  care- 
lessly tolerant  of  all  vice,  save  only 
horse-stealing  and  card-cheating,  as  was 
the  rest  of  his  sparsely  populated,  hetero- 
geneous world. 

He  sat  for  a  while  on  a  bench  outside 
a  saloon,  listening  to  the  music  within. 
There  were  three  men  with  guitars,  and 
two  women  who  sang,  and  they  made 
real  melody.  There  was  the  minor  wail 
that  lies  always  in  the  voices  of  an  op- 
pressed or  a  passing  race.  They  were 
singing  over  and  over  the  swinging 
Puritan  march,  with  a  fire  inspired  of 
mescal.  A  tipsy  Olympias,  crowned, 
not  with  the  leaves  of  the  ivy  of  Samo- 
thrace,  but  with  a  chaplet  of  dilapi- 
dated paper  flowers,  caught  in  her 
dishevelled  hair,  danced  on  a  table  in 
65 


THE   GOLDEN  CHAIN 

the  middle  of  the  room,  throwing  dart- 
ing black  shadows  against  the  stained 
and  broken  wall.  The  men  applauded 
with  shouts  and  yells.  The  uproar  made 
no  difference  to  Keble.  He  ran  his 
hands  deep  into  his  pockets,  crossed 
his  booted  legs,  and  leaned  against  the 
front  of  the  house.  There  was  a  frown 
on  his  forehead  as  he  looked  up  to  the 
stars,  seeing  them  no  more  than  he  saw 
the  woman  who  came  to  the  threshold 
and  tried  to  attract  his  attention.  She 
turned  away  with  a  shrug  of  her  shoul- 
ders when  he  did  not  heed  her.  "  Oye 
—  amigo!" 

The  music  rose  to  a  pitch  of  ecstasy. 
It  ran  as  an  undercurrent  to  his  thoughts, 
and  did  not  disturb  them.  The  tune  had 
changed,  andhehummeditunconsciously 
between  his  set  teeth  as  he  put  himself  to 
planning  his  future.  It  was  the  first  time 
he  had  looked  ahead  with  any  purpose. 
Up  to  then  he  had  stayed  around  the 
cabin  and  the  adjacent  foot-hills  most  of 
the  time,  being  of  use  to  his  father  and 
66 


THF.RE  WAS  A  FROWN  O-N  HIS  KORKHEAD,  AS  HE 
LOOKED  UP  TO  THE  STARS. 


THE   GOLDEN  CHAIN 

mother,  going  off  in  the  Spring  and 
Fall,  perhaps,  to  help  at  round-ups. 
When  he  had  thought  about  his  career 
at  all,  he  had  supposed  that  he  would 
eventually — when  his  brother  should 
grow  large  enough  to  take  his  place  at 
home  —  be  a  cow-boy,  or,  in  the  inter- 
vals of  that  employment,  a  prospector. 
He  had  not  wanted  to  be  a  rancher. 
The  life  of  the  tiller  of  the  soil  had 
seemed  to  him  too  tame  and  without 
events.  Just  at  present  he  was  inclined 
to  consider  it  in  another  light.  To 
have  a  good  ranch  somewhere  down  by 
one  of  the  rare  river  flats,  and  live  on  it 
with  one's  wife  and  family  —  it  would 
not  be  so  bad  as  he  had  once  thought. 
Money  had  been  a  thing  for  which  he 
had  never  had  much  need.  He  knew  of 
nothing  outside  the  trashy  stock  of  a 
general  merchandise  and  grocery  store 
that  it  would  buy,  save  only  whiskey 
and  the  passing  affections  of  women. 
And  the  attraction  of  either  of  these 
last  was  not  apparent  to  him.  Now  the 
67 


THE   GOLDEN  CHAIN 

vista  of  the  future  was  lighted  for  him 
by  a  girl's  eyes.  Decidedly,  if  he  were 
going  to  marry  Felicia,  he  must  begin  to 
think  of  getting  her  a  home  in  time,  of 
settling  down  to  some  one  purpose.  A 
woman  could  not  share  the  life  of  a  pro- 
spector or  a  cow-boy.  That  ambition,  as 
an  ultimate,  vanished  forever.  He  might, 
indeed,  have  to  be  a  cow-boy  or  a  pro- 
spector for  a  time,  but  only  as  a  way  to 
the  end — which  was  to  earn  money.  At 
present  he  had  ten  dollars  in  the  world, 
ten  dollars  upon  which  to  undertake  the 
providing  for  two  and  the  entry  upon 
married  life.  But  poverty  had  no  ter- 
rors for  him — in  this  part  of  the  coun- 
try it  did  not  need  to  have  for  any  man 
of  common  intelligence  and  a  strong 
arm.  Had  he  had  less  than  half  the 
ten  dollars,  he  would  still  not  have  hesi- 
tated. When  he  should  want  work  and 
pay,  he  would  be  able  to  get  them. 

And  having  settled  that  to  his  satis- 
faction, he  stood  up  and  walked  over  to 
the  corral  where  his  horse  was  and  where 
68 


THE   GOLDEN  CHAIN 

he  had  left  his  saddle  and  blanket.  He 
found  the  blanket  and  started  out  again. 

"  Que  haces  ? "  demanded  the  man 
who  was  guarding  the  corral,  waking 
from  his  doze.  "  Wat  are  you  doing  ? " 

"  Voy  acostarme,"  Keble  answered. 

"Were?"  questioned  the  Mexican; 
"donde?" 

"  Eu  algun  rincon,"  he  called  back. 
And  so  to  bed  in  a  corner  he  went,  even 
as  he  had  said.  Funds  were  not,  after 
all,  so  plentiful  that  he  had  any  to  waste 
on  the  quite  unnecessary  and  superflu- 
ous comforts  of  a  lodging.  He  wrapped 
himself  in  the  blanket,  and  lying  down  in 
a  corner  formed  by  the  corral  wall  and 
that  of  a  house,  pillowed  his  head  on  his 
arm  and  went  to  sleep  —  not  the  only 
one  who  slept  in  the  streets  of  the  town 
that  night,  with  the  star-flecked  sky 
above,  and  for  lullaby  the  rustle  of  the 
cottonwoods'  silvery  leaves,  and  the 
echoes  of  song  and  music  that  came  out 
from  wide  open  doors.  But  most  of  the 
others  slept  where  they  had  fallen,  and 
69 


THE   GOLDEN  CHAIN 

there  were  two  besides  —  one  by  the 
church,  and  the  other  in  a  narrow  way 
between  some  houses  —  who  slept  a 
deeper  sleep  from  which  they  would  not 
awaken.  There  was  blood  on  the  soft 
dust  where  they  lay,  and  a  knife  wound 
between  the  shoulders  of  each  —  not  the 
greatest  harm,  perhaps,  that  mescal  and 
women  had  led  to  that  night. 

It  was  beginning  to  be  light  when 
Keble  moved  his  head  on  his  arm  and, 
stirring,  opened  his  eyes.  He  had  not 
been  there  for  quite  two  hours.  The 
grey  sky  was  yellowing.  A  woman, 
huddled  in  a  black  shawl,  scuffled  by,  a 
cock  crowed  from  some  yard,  and  an- 
other and  many  another  answered  it. 
His  dog,  which  had  slept  beside  the 
pony  in  the  stall,  came  over  to  him  wag- 
ging its  tail  and  wriggling.  He  sat  up 
and  shivered  a  little.  He  was  not  cold, 
but  the  ground  had  been  hard,  and  his 
muscles  were  cramped.  The  indistinct 
outlines  of  the  trees  and  the  low,  white 
houses  grew  slowly  clear.  He  heard  the 
70 


/TV 

THE    GOLDEN  CHAIN 

water  in  the  acequia  rippling,  and  the 
leaves  swishing  and  whispering  in  the 
dawn  breeze.  The  sun  came  up,  and  with 
it  the  priest  emerged  from  his  house  and 
went  to  unlock  the  doors  of  the  church 
and  throw  them  open.  There  were  not 
many  who  came  to  the  early  mass,  only 
old  men  and  women  and  a  few  small 
children.  The  rest  of  the  town  was 
sleeping  deeply  after  its  revelry. 

Keble,  after  having  folded  his  blanket 
and  put  it  back,  made  his  toilet  at  a 
water  trough,  combed  his  still  dripping 
hair  and  retied  his  neckerchief,  which 
was  red  and  bright  yellow.  After  that 
he  made  no  further  immediate  attempt 
to  see  Felicia  than  merely  standing  for 
a  time  on  a  corner  and  watching  the 
wagons  until  she  came  out  of  hers.  It 
was  then  nearly  eight  o'clock.  He 
joined  her.  They  were,  she  told  him, 
going  to  the  hotel  for  breakfast  —  all 
four  of  them.  The  box-office  receipts 
of  the  night  before,  and  the  probable 
ones  of  the  night  to  come,  justified  the 


THE   GOLDEN  CHAIN 

expenditure.  That,  Dudley  knew  from 
past  experience,  would  be  decidedly  out 
of  all  proportion  to  the  merits  of  the 
meal.  The  coffee  and  the  flies  were 
both  thick  at  the  hotel,  but  the  town 
offered  nothing  a  great  deal  better.  He 
decided  to  permit  himself  the  extrava- 
gance of  four  bits  and  to  breakfast 
there  also. 

They  found  him  already  at  the  long 
table  when  they  arrived.  His  coat  hung 
on  a  peg  at  the  side  of  the  room  ;  but  he 
had  on  the  garment  of  all  needful  cere- 
mony—  his  vest.  To  have  sat  down 
without  that,  in  the  presence  of  women, 
would  never  have  occurred  to  him,  nor 
to  most  of  the  men  present. 

After  the  breakfast  he  waited  for 
Felicia  outside,  and  they  strolled  off  to 
the  outskirts  of  the  town,  past  the  dump- 
heaps  of  bottles  and  glistening  cans,  and 
coming  to  a  fair-sized  mesquite  bush  sat 
in  its  patch  of  shade.  He  took  a  bright 
new  ten-cent  piece  from  his  pocket,  and 
opening  his  knife  began  scraping  it  in 
72 


THE    GOLDEN  CHAIN 

the  centre.  It  was  his  intention  to  make 
a  ring  for  Felicia  out  of  the  corrugated 
rim,  and  he  told  her  so.  Should  she 
give  him  a  curl  of  her  hair  in  exchange  ? 
she  asked,  taking  one  between  her 
thumb  and  finger,  pulling  it  forward  and 
considering  it  at  an  angle  of  vision. 

He  looked  at  it,  then  shook  his  head. 
"I'll  take  them  all,  by  and  by  —  or 
none,"  he  announced. 

The  process  of  making  the  ring  was 
a  slow  one,  and  it  was  by  no  means 
completed  when  the  sun  had  got  to 
well  past  mid-heaven.  It  was  time, 
then,  to  go  back  to  the  town  for  dinner. 
Moreover,  there  was  no  shade  under 
the  mesquite,  and  had  not  been  for 
some  time.  Keble  went  back  also,  but 
not  to  dinner.  Two  meals  a  day,  he  had 
decided,  would  suffice  him  just  at  pres- 
ent. And  whereas  breakfast  and  supper 
cost  fifty  cents,  dinners  required  an  extra 
quarter. 

He  found  some  old  friends  of  his  last 
round-up,  and  went  off  with  them  to 
73 


THE   GOLDEN  CHAIN 

their  room  at  a  boarding-house.  It  was 
not  until  late  in  the  afternoon,  when  it 
was  almost  dusk;  that  he  returned  to 
look  for  Felicia  again.  She  was  not 
with  the  outfit  and  not  in  the  streets. 
He  bethought  himself  of  the  church 
and  went  over  there.  No  one  was  vis- 
ible in  the  deep  gloom  just  at  first,  but 
presently  a  woman  came  toward  him. 
She  had  a  grey  shawl  over  her  head 
and  until  she  was  near,  he  took  her  to 
be  Felicia.  Then  he  saw  that  it  was 
only  her  aunt.  He  asked  for  the  girl. 
Mrs.  Denison  knew  nothing  as  to  her 
whereabouts.  She  herself,  she  ex- 
plained hastily,  had  been  saying  her 
prayers.  He  nodded  indifferently.  The 
action  was  doubtless  laudable;  but  de- 
votions were  hardly  what  he  would  have 
expected  of  her.  They  left  the  church 
together  and  walked  down  the  street; 
then,  as  a  last  resort,  he  went  over  to 
the  hotel.  It  was  possible  that  Felicia 
had  gone  into  the  big  darkened  parlour 
to  be  cool  and  quiet. 
74 


THE   GOLDEN  CHAIN 

And  there  he  found  her,  after  his 
eyes  had  grown  accustomed  to  the  lit- 
tle light.  She  had  fallen  asleep  on  a 
lounge,  curled  up  not  very  comfortably, 
her  cheek  in  her  hand.  There  was  no 
one  else  in  the  room,  and  though  the 
windows  were  open,  the  green  shutters 
were  closed.  Outside  indolent  Mexican 
feet  shuffled  by  on  the  gravel,  or  more 
determined  American  ones  crunched 
sharply.  The  cottonwoods  rustled  and 
the  acequias  rippled.  He  sat  down  by 
the  sofa  to  wait  until  Felicia  should 
awake. 


75 


CHAPTER  V 

|NSIDE  the  music-hall,  on  the 
stage  before  a  breathless  audi- 
ence, the  play  was  reaching  its 
climax.  Outside,  in  the  street 
in  front,  that  which  was  in  serious  and 
dangerous  earnest  was  reaching  a  climax, 
too.  The  golden  chain  had  been  missed 
from  the  neck  of  Nuestra  Sefiora  del 
Carmen.  The  priest  had  had  occasion 
to  go  into  the  church  about  nine  o'clock  ; 
he  had  happened  to  notice  the  statue, 
and  had  seen  that  its  most  valuable  or- 
nament had  disappeared.  Coming  forth 
in  dismay  and  consternation,  he  had 
spread  the  news.  Whom  did  he  sus- 
pect ?  had  been  asked  at  once.  He  did 
not  know,  he  had  no  idea,  —  unless  it 
were  the  nifia  Americana,  the  little  one 
76 


THE   GOLDEN  CHAIN 

who  was  here  with  the  strolling  actors. 
She  had  been  a  good  deal  around  the 
church;  and,  yes,  he  recalled  that  he 
had  seen  her  with  her  grey  shawl  over 
her  head  coming  out  from  there  late  in 
evening,  some  time  after  every  one  else 
had  left.  Still,  he  hastened  to  add, 
fearful  of  doing  an  injustice,  it  might 
not  have  been  she  at  all.  She  had 
seemed  very  devout.  And  there  were 
plenty  of  others  who  were  certainly  not 
above  suspicion  in  Tierra  Blanca. 

Nevertheless,  some  one  or  two  re- 
ported that  it  might,  the  padre  said, 
have  been  the  nina  Gringa.  Some  eight 
or  ten  passed  it  on  that  the  padre  had 
said  it  was  indeed  she.  The  news  had 
spread  fast  among  the  people.  An  act 
of  sacrilege  had  been  committed,  the 
greatest  and  most  valuable  treasure  of 
their  church  had  been  robbed  —  and  the 
Gringa  girl  had  done  it. 

From  the  music-hall,  in  the  moment 
of  tense  interest,  there  went  out  no 
sound  to  the  street.  But  from  the  street 
77 


THE   GOLDEN  CHAIN 

there  began  to  come  in,  low  at  first, 
but  rising  and  swelling,  a  deep  and  omi- 
nous murmur.  The  actors  stopped  and 
waited  until  they  should  be  able  to  make 
themselves  heard.  The  door  was  tried 
and  rattled.  It  had  been  locked  from 
within  and  did  not  open.  There  fol- 
lowed the  noise  of  bodies  throwing 
themselves  against  it.  It  shook,  strained 
under  a  great  pressure,  gave,  and  crashed 
in.  A  mob  of  Mexicans  crushed  and 
pressed  and  struggled  through,  their 
murmurs  rising  to  a  howl.  The  audience 
was  up  on  its  feet,  and  the  men,  both 
brown  and  white,  had  turned  and  faced 
them.  Six-shooters  and  knives  were  al- 
ready drawn.  Keble,  from  his  place  just 
in  front  of  the  platform,  could  see  those 
who  were  already  in  hesitate  and  at- 
tempt to  fall  back ;  but,  pressed  from 
behind,  they  were  forced  on.  The  re- 
volvers were  levelled  now,  and  some  one 
called  out  a  demand  for  an  explanation. 
"  La  cadena  de  oro,"  was  the  answer, 
yelled  from  a  hundred  throats  at  once. 
78 


THE   GOLDEN  CHAIN 

"La  nifia  lo  ha  robado  —  the  girl  has 
stolen  it,  has  stolen  the  golden  chain." 

The  brown  hands  stretched  out  with 
one  accord  all  pointing  to  the  stage,  to 
Felicia  standing  in  the  light  of  the  lan- 
terns, slight  and  pale  in  her  long  black 
dress,  wide-eyed,  frightened,  the  blotches 
of  rouge  vivid  and  crude  against  her 
cheeks.  The  two  men  were  still  with 
her ;  but  at  the  first  giving  of  the  door 
her  aunt  had  drawn  back  to  the  turkey- 
red  curtains  that  served  for  scenery,  and 
had  gradually  disappeared. 

"  She  had  stolen  it,  la  muchacha,  la 
nina,  the  one  in  black.  She  has  taken 
the  golden  chain  from  the  neck  of  Nu- 
estra  Sefiora  del  Carmen.  The  priest 
said  so,  and  it  is  gone." 

The  little  head  with  its  brown  curls 
was  thrown  back  indignantly.  "  I  did 
not  take  it,"  she  denied  in  their  own 
tongue  ;  "  I  did  not  know  it  was  gone." 
Keble  heard,  but  few  others  did.  The 
howls  and  roars  had  begun  again,  and 
the  Mexicans  in  the  audience  were  join- 
79 


THE   GOLDEN  CHAIN 

ing  in  the  noise.  They  outnumbered 
the  white  men  greatly,  and  they  were 
surging  forward,  their  women  with 
them.  Such  of  them  as  were  not 
drunk  with  mescal  and  aguardiente 
were  more  so,  if  anything,  with  fanati- 
cism and  that  mad  rage  of  crowds 
which  gathers  from  itself.  Whether  or 
no  the  girl  had  taken  the  chain,  whether 
or  no  the  priest  had  actually  accused 
her  of  it,  they  were  far  past  stopping  to 
reason  upon.  She  was  a  heretic  and  of 
a  troupe  of  wandering  players  —  a  class 
always  open  to  suspicion.  In  their 
present  frenzy  these  ordinarily  mild 
and  sweet-humoured  people  would  need 
no  more  evidence  upon  which  to  do 
murder.  And  Keble,  who  had  known 
the  race  from  his  childhood,  knew  that. 
He  went  to  the  foot  of  the  platform. 
"Put  out  those  lanterns,"  he  commanded. 
The  two  men  demurred.  "Put  them 
out!  "  he  repeated.  It  was  Felicia  who 
obeyed,  stooping  forward  quickly. 
"  Wait  for  me,"  he  said  to  her,  "  go  to 
80 


THE    GOLDEN  CHAIN 

the  left  side  window,  have  it  open  — 
and  wait  for  me." 

A  shot  was  fired  in  the  back  of  the 
room.  It  was  answered  by  several. 
There  were  the  yells  and  shouts  and 
curses  of  menj  the  screeches  and  en- 
treaties of  women.  Benches  and  stools 
and  boxes  went  banging  and  scraping 
over.  The  Mexicans  were  pressing  for- 
ward to  the  shadowy  stage.  Dudley 
jumped  up  on  it,  grabbing  —  even  as 
he  did  so  —  a  six-shooter  from  some 
man  beside  him.  He  had  his  own,  but 
he  might  have  need  of  more  than  the 
one,  later  on.  From  the  platform  he 
faced  about,  threw  out  his  arm  and  fired 
twice.  In  the  cow  camps  he  had  won 
shooting  contests  more  than  once.  At 
each  of  his  shots  now  a  bracket  lamp 
went  out.  The  music-hall  was  in  thick 
darkness,  an  invisible  pit  of  uproar,  of 
blows  and  crashes  and  wails,  down  there 
below  him.  There  were  one  or  two 
more  desultory  discharges  of  firearms. 
And  the  cries  of  "la  cadena "  were 
G  81 


THE   GOLDEN  CHAIN 

changing  to  "muera,  muera  la  nifla." 
They  would  kill  her,  too,  if  they  were  to 
get  hold  of  her  now,  very  probably. 

Dudley,  on  the  ground  outside,  below 
the  window,  heard  as  he  reached  up  his 
arms.  "  Quick,"  he  urged,  and  she  was 
beside  him  as  the  first  of  the  mob  stum- 
bled and  clambered  upon  the  stage.  It 
was  lighter  outside  than  it  was  in  the 
music-hall,  and  he  knew  that  it  would  be 
only  a  question  of  a  few  moments  before 
he  and  Felicia  would  be  descried.  At 
the  front  of  the  building  some  of  the 
crowd  was  still  pushing  to  get  in.  He 
drew  her  into  the  shadow  and  hurried 
her  around  by  the  back  way  and  off 
among  some  of  the  houses.  No  one 
was  about,  but  there  were  dogs  that 
barked,  and  that  sound  would  help  to 
trace  them. 

"I  haven't  the  chain,"  she  whispered 
piteously.  "  I  haven't  —  really.  I  don't 
know  anything  about  their  old  cadena." 

Of  course  she  did  not,  he  answered 
absently.  He  was  not  thinking  so  much 
82 


THE    GOLDEN  CHAIN 

of  what  was  behind  as  of  what  was 
ahead.  As  to  where  the  chain  was  — 
he  had  already  drawn  conclusions  which 
amounted  to  a  certainty.  That,  how- 
ever, could  wait  until  another  time. 
What  mattered  now  was  to  get  Felicia 
to  some  place  of  safety  until  daylight  or 
the  white  population  should  bring  the 
people  to  reason. 

Three  ways  had  already  suggested 
themselves,  —  to  hide,  say  in  some  corral 
or  yard  or  outhouse,  was  the  first.  But 
that  they  would  be  tracked  and  found, 
betrayed  by  the  yapping  of  the  innu- 
merable curs,  was  more  than  a  chance. 
They  had  come  to  an  opening  from 
which  they  could  see  back  to  the  music- 
hall.  From  the  window  by  which  they 
themselves  had  escaped,  silhouetted 
heads  and  shoulders  protruded.  The 
heads  and  shoulders  became  whole  bod- 
ies, dropping  ffom  the  window  to  the 
ground,  and  starting  in  different  direc- 
tions in  pursuit.  Some  came  directly 
toward  themselves. 
83 


THE   GOLDEN  CHAIN 

The  priest — they  might  go  to  the 
priest's  house  and  ask  protection.  But 
even  on  the  possibility  of  the  padre 
being  there,  asylum  might  be  refused 
through  bigotry  or  fear.  Moreover,  he 
mistrusted  priests  as,  at  best,  given  to 
subterfuge  and  double  dealing.  And 
had  not  this  one  accused  Felicia  of 
having  stolen? 

And  last  —  there  was  Pepita  Arcos, 
Santa  Pepita,  whom  these  Mexicans 
greatly  revered.  It  was  almost  a  cer- 
tainty that  she  would  be  at  home  at  this 
hour.  He  believed  that  she  would  help 
him.  It  was,  perhaps,  a  bold  play,  and 
hazardous,  but  the  chance  seemed  to 
him  the  best.  He  had  been  circling  all 
the  while  in  that  direction  as  they  had 
hurried  along  hugging  the  shadows. 
But  Pepita's  house  was  still  a  half  a 
mile  away,  out  beyond  one  end  of  the 
main  street.  The  calls  and  shouts  and 
barkings  behind  were  coming  toward 
them  and  nearer. 

"Can  you  run?"  he  asked  quickly; 
84 


THE   GOLDEN  CHAIN 

"for  five  or  ten  minutes  —  for  half  a 
mile,  to  the  west  end  of  the  town?" 

She  wasted  no  words.  "Yes,"  she 
told  him. 

He  looked  down  at  the  long  skirt 
dragging  and  hindering.  She  gathered 
it  up,  well  up,  out  of  the  way.  He 
caught  one  of  her  hands ;  it  belonged 
to  him  now,  in  any  case,  he  felt,  by 
the  promise  she  had  given  him  late  that 
evening  in  the  big,  quiet  room  of  the 
hotel.  "When  we  begin  to  run,"  he 
warned,  "we  will  be  seen.  And  the 
dogs  will  come  at  us.  If  we  start,  we 
have  got  to  keep  on.  Can  you  do  it  ?  " 
She  nodded  emphatically. 

And  it  was  as  he  had  said.  The 
dogs  about  the  houses  gave  tongue  and 
chase,  and  presently  the  two  scurrying 
figures  were  observed. 

"Alii  —  alii  estan,"  some  one  in  the 
distance  shouted  triumphantly,  and  the 
pursuit  grew  hotter.  Once  a  bullet 
struck  the  ground  in  front  of  Felicia, 
a  little  to  the  right.  She  did  not  waver 
85 


THE   GOLDEN  CHAIN 

or  hesitate.  It  flashed  across  Keble's 
mind  that  she  ran  well,  that  he  was 
going  his  fastest,  and  she  was  hardly  a 
hindrance.  He  bent  down  his  head. 
Could  she  keep  it  up  ?  he  questioned. 
Her  only  reply  was  to  do  so,  without 
faltering  or  slackening  the  pace.  But 
the  crowd,  gathering  from  all  directions 
now,  was  gaining.  The  leaders  were 
not  two  hundred  yards  behind.  The 
straight,  wide  street  stretched  ahead. 

They  came  to  the  end  of  it.  Beyond 
was  the  open  country  with  nothing  in 
sight  but  the  sands  and  shrubs  and 
cacti,  and  one  very  small  house,  stand- 
ing alone  some  distance  down  the  road. 
There  was  a  light  within. 

They  reached  the  house  and  Dudley 
tried  the  door.  It  opened.  He  pushed 
Felicia  in,  followed,  shut  it,  and  braced 
himself  against  it,  shooting  a  bolt  at 
the  same  time.  A  fat  Mexican  woman, 
the  Sefiora  Arcos,  roused  from  dozing, 
got  up  from  the  dirt  floor  slowly  and 
laboriously.  An  inner  door  opened,  and 
86 


THE    GOLDEN  CHAIN 

a  girl  stood  in  it,  a  Mexican  also,  whose 
hair,  loosed  from  its  braids,  fell,  blue 
black  about  her,  over  her  shoulders 
well  below  her  knees.  It  was  Josefma. 
Her  whole  figure  stiffened  suddenly 
and  the  weighted  head  went  up.  She 
had  seen  Keble,  and  had  seen,  too,  the 
girl  beside  him,  leaning  against  the 
wall,  shaking  with  exhaustion  and  breath- 
lessness. 

Dudley  caught  the  instant  harden- 
ing of  the  soft,  brown  eyes.  His  heart 
sank.  If  this  desperate  chance  were  to 
fail,  if  the  saint  were  to  prove  a  fanatic, 
the  woman  jealous  and  vindictive  — 
then  the  ten  bullets  in  his  two  revolvers 
would  be  his  only  hope. 

The  shouting  and  barking  were  close. 
"Pepita,"  he  said  hurriedly,  speaking 
in  Spanish,  "  the  chain  has  been  taken 
from  the  Virgin's  neck  —  the  golden 
chain.  They,"  he  jerked  his  head  over 
his  shoulder  toward  the  town  —  "  they 
believe  that  she  took  it,"  and  he  laid  his 
hand  on  Felicia's  shoulder.  "  But  she 
87 


THE    GOLDEN  CHAIN 

did  not.  I  give  you  my  word  that  she 
knows  nothing  of  it.  Will  you  tell  them 
so  ?  They  will  listen  to  you.  If  you 
send  them  away,  they  will  go.  If  you 
don't,  they  will  kill  her."  He  hesitated, 
then  he  played  his  final  card.  "  She  is 
my  novia,  Pepita.  I  love  her.  She  is 
going  to  marry  me.  Take  care  of  her 
for  me."  And  he  drew  away. 

The  Mexican  looked  at  the  Gringa 
whose  white  and  frightened  face  was 
daubed  with  red  on  the  cheeks  and  lips. 
There  was  the  noise  of  many  feet  on  the 
ground  outside.  But  the  shouts  had 
stopped.  A  blow  came  upon  the  door. 
Pepita  pointed  to  the  one  out  of  which 
she  herself  had  just  come.  "  Pase  us- 
ted,"  she  said.  Felicia  looked  question- 
ingly  at  Keble.  He  nodded,  "  Do  all 
that  she  tells  you  to  —  exactly,"  he  bade 
her.  She  obeyed  at  once,  and  the  Mex- 
ican girl  shut  her  into  the  farther  room. 
Then  she  put  Keble  aside. 

And  she  stood  forth,  black  gowned 
and  in  the  mantle  of  all  her  black  hair  — 
88 


THE   GOLDEN  CHAIN 

Santa  Pepita  speaking  to  her  own  people. 
The  candle  shine  from  the  hovel  was 
behind  her,  outlining  her  vaguely,  mak- 
ing a  shimmer  about  her  head.  The 
starlight  was  on  her  face.  And  the 
men  and  women  fell  back  from  the 
small  cleared  space  of  beaten  ground, 
to  the  open  beyond,  among  the  sparse 
bushes  and  the  glistening  sands. 

It  was  with  the  speech  of  authority 
that  she  addressed  them.  They  were 
several  hundred,  all  of  them  lashed  up 
to  the  pitch  of  murder  and  blood-lust, 
for  the  wiping  out  of  sacrilege,  many  of 
them  wild  drunk,  most  of  them  armed. 
The  nickel  of  revolver  barrels  and  the 
steel  of  knives  glinted. 

And  the  figure  in  the  doorway  was 
only  that  of  a  girl  whom  they  had  known 
from  the  time  —  not  eighteen  years 
before  —  when  she  had  been  born  in 
this  same  adobe  hut.  She  was  defence- 
less. Almost  any  woman  amongst  them 
could  have  flung  her  aside  and  passed 
on  in.  But  she  was  the  one  who  had 
89 


THE    GOLDEN  CHAIN 

laid  her  hands  on  sick  and  crippled  folk 
and  —  so  they  believed  —  caused  them 
to  be  healed ;  whose  prayers  were  an- 
swered when  others  prayed  in  vain ; 
whose  supplications  to  the  patron  saint 
had  brought  rain  when  the  earth  had 
been  all  white-hot  dust  and  the  heavens 
brass.  And  when  she  told  them  now 
that  they  were  to  go  back  to  the  town 
and  to  their  homes,  and  to  attempt  no 
harm  toward  the  nifia  Americana,  who 
was  innocent  and  had  no  knowledge 
of  the  chain,  they  muttered  a  little,  — 
that  the  chain  was  gone,  and  that  the 
padre  himself  had  accused  the  Gringa; 
but  they  went.  They  broke  away  on 
the  outskirts  first,  and  falling  and  slink- 
ing off,  finally  departed  altogether,  aim- 
less and  balked  and  ashamed. 

The  girl  turned  back  into  the  hut.  She 
was  not  the  Santa  Pepita  who,  standing 
forth  in  the  starlight,  had  faced  a  mob 
alone,  with  no  weapon  save  her  sanctity 
and  perhaps  her  soft-eyed  gentleness. 
She  was  Josefina  Arcos,  who  loved  — 
90 


THE   GOLDEN  CHAIN 

not  her  kind  or  Heaven  — but  one  man, 
a  blue-eyed,  fair-haired  young  Gringo, 
the  man  who  tried  now  to  thank  her. 
She  was  a  woman  who  had  seen  about 
to  be  destroyed  the  other  woman  who 
had  won  that  man's  love.  She  had 
saved  her,- and  now  that  the  instinct  of 
generosity  had  had  its  way,  regretted  it 
bitterly,  angrily,  furiously.  She  was  a 
little  fierce  creature  who  struck  down  the 
big  hand  that  was  put  out  to  her  in  grati- 
tude, who  ran,  with  her  head  back  and  the 
magnificence  of  her  black  hair  flung  away 
from  her  pitifully  drawn  and  working 
face,  threw  open  the  inner  door,  snatched 
at  the  Gringa's  wrist  and  pulled  her  forth 
from  the  darkness  into  the  candle-light,  — 
pushed  her  out  into  the  night,  faced 
around  on  the  man,  and  bade  him  go  to. 
Then,  when  she  had  banged  the  door 
behind  them  both,  she  ignored  the  fat 
old  woman  who  stood  staring  stupidly, 
and  sank  huddling  on  the  ground  in  a 
corner,  and  sobbed  and  tore  the  black 
hair  and  the  palms  of  her  hands,  and 
9* 


THE  GOLDEN  CHAIN 

even  the  hard  mud  floor,  moaning  re- 
grets for  the  thing  she  had  done,  rising 
to  a  sitting  posture  now  and  then  and 
cursing  the  white  girl  in  the  two  lan- 
guages whose  oaths  she  had  learned  in 
her  time,  and  wailing  defiantly  that  that 
girl  should  yet  be  killed,  shot,  stabbed, 
pulled  to  pieces  —  should  die. 

And  the  mother,  who  would  have 
found  a  daughter  in  a  dance-hall  more 
profitable  than  a  saint  in  the  favour  of  the 
church,  who  had  seen  the  saint  in  human 
moments  before  this,  and  was  sceptical 
of  canonisation,  sat  down  in  a  grunting 
heap  amid  her  litter  of  cigarette  ends, 
rolled  with  much  deftness  some  straw 
paper  and  tobacco,  lit  it  and  smoked 
it,  and  another,  and  yet  another,  until 
she  nodded  and  fell  asleep,  and  snored. 


92 


CHAPTER   VI 

IND  if  there  was  wailing  in  the 
adobe  of  the  saint,  there  was 
gnashing  of  teeth  in  the  wagon 
of  the  sinner. 

Mrs.  Denison  had  seen  herself  forced 
by  a  mere  boy  and  a  fat  and  untidy 
Mexican  priest,  by  Lewis,  and  by  the 
husband  whom  she  held  in  unmixed 
contempt,  to  produce  from  its  hiding- 
place  the  bauble  which,  in  her  opinion, 
had  hung  quite  long  enough  around  the 
neck  of  a  wooden  figure,  and  would,  at 
some  future  time,  in  some  sufficiently 
distant  place,  show  to  much  greater 
advantage  upon  her  own  —  the  golden 
chain. 

The  priest,  having  been  all  thankful- 
ness for  the  recovery  of   the   church's 
93 


THE    GOLDEN  CHAIN 

one  valuable  votive  offering,  and  all  hu- 
mility and  repentance  over  the  results 
of  his  ill-considered  suggestion,  that  the 
nina  Americana  who  had  been  so  much 
about  the  church  might  have  been  the 
thief,  had  refrained  from  rebuke  or  ad- 
monition. Her  husband  had  not.  She 
had  broken  up  the  performance,  had  put 
them  all  in  imminent  peril  of  then"  lives, 
and  had  brought  the  company  into  a  dis- 
credit which  might  prove  far-reaching,  as 
a  band  of  pilfering  vagabonds.  And  he 
had  told  her  what  he  thought  about  it  in 
convincing  and  forceful  terms.  Keble, 
Lewis,  and  the  priest  had  been  witnesses 
of  her  sulky  humiliation,  as  she  had 
stood  leaning  against  a  wheel,  tossing 
her  becurl-papered  head  with  unsuccess- 
ful defiance,  and  sneering  unsteadily. 

The  priest  had  finally  gone  back  to 
his  house  carrying  his  rescued  treasure ; 
but  young  Keble  had  remained  for  some 
while  longer,  and  had  taken  the  occasion 
to  inform  them  of  his  intention  to  deprive 
the  company  of  the  further  services  of 
94 


THE    GOLDEN  CHAIN 

its  youngest  member,  who  would,  he 
explained,  be  married  to  him  the  next 
morning  and  stay  behind,  for  the  present, 
at  Tierra  Blanca.  At  the  moment,  he 
had  said,  she  was  over  at  the  hotel,  in 
care  of  the  highly  respectable  matron 
who  kept  it.  And  she  would  remain 
there  for  the  rest  of  the  night.  "  You 
can  see  her  in  the  morning,"  he  had 
said.  "  She'll  tell  you  the  same  thing 
then." 

He  had  hooked  his  thumbs  into  his 
cartridge  belt,  and  squaring  his  wide 
shoulders,  had  met,  unmoved,  first  re- 
fusal, then  invective,  then  persuasion, 
and  even  finally  the  aunt's  own  tearful 
entreaties  that  her  niece  be  not  thus 
ruthlessly  torn  from  her.  He  would  be 
breaking  them  up  in  business,  Denison 
had  argued  wrathfully.  Keble  had 
thought  that  improbable.  They  could, 
he  averred,  easily  pick  up  some  one  old 
enough  to  be  nurse  to  Mrs.  Denison's 
Juliet.  The  next  good-sized  town  would 
very  likely  produce  her.  In  any  case, 
95 


THE   GOLDEN  CHAIN 

it  was  not  of  the  business  that  he  was 
thinking.  To  threats  of  the  enforce- 
ment of  a  natural  guardian's  rights  he 
had  opposed  an  equally  unconcerned 
front.  Whether  or  not  Felicia,  by  the 
law  of  the  place,  was  old  enough  to  be 
her  own  mistress  he  did  not  know.  But 
the  priest,  he  reminded  them,  was  wit- 
ness as  to  who  had  stolen  the  Virgin's 
chain  —  had  been  brought  along,  indeed, 
precisely  to  that  end.  And  a  word  from 
him  would  make  not  only  Tierra  Blanca, 
but  most  parts  of  the  country  where 
devout  and  pious  Mexicans  were  to  be 
found,  uncomfortable  and  unprofitable 
for  the  troupe  for  some  years  to  come. 
"  He  won't  talk  now,"  Keble  had  told 
them,  "at  least,  he  has  said  he  won't 
If  I  give  him  the  word,  though,  he  will 
—  in  a  hurry." 

In  the  end  he  had  taken  his  departure 
still  unaffected  in  his  determination. 
And  long  after  Lewis  and  Denison  had 
exhausted  their  well-stocked  vocabulary 
of  abuse,  in  making  apparent  to  the 
96 


THE   GOLDEN  CHAIN 

woman  the  most  salient  points  of  beauty 
of  the  situation,  and  the  full  extent  and 
purport  of  the  results  of  her  action; 
long  after  they  were  sleeping  the  sleep 
of  those  who  have  done  their  utmost  and 
have  nothing  upon  that  score  to  reproach 
themselves  with ;  long  after  the  little 
town  had  become  quiet  save  for  occa- 
sional sounds  from  some  saloon,  and  the 
barking  of  dogs  answering  to  each  other, 
or  to  coyotes  off  on  the  dim  flat,  Mrs. 
Denison  came  out  again  from  the  wagon 
in  which  she  had  been  thrashing  from 
side  to  side.  She  made  her  way  to  the 
hotel,  with  the  intention  of  seeing  her 
niece  and  trying  to  induce  her  to  leave 
Tierra  Blanca  before  daylight  —  as  they 
themselves  intended  to  do  in  order  to 
avoid  possible  further  trouble  with  the 
natives.  But  some  one  was  walking 
back  and  forth  on  the  strip  of  hard  soil 
between  the  row  of  cottonwoods  and 
the  hotel  door.  She  crept  nearer,  from 
trunk  to  trunk.  It  was  Keble,  his 
thumbs  still  hooked  in  his  cartridge 
H  97 


THE   GOLDEN  CHAIN 

belt,  his  shoulders  still  squared,  pacing 
up  and  down,  mounting  guard,  full  of 
his  new  responsibility,  and  waiting  for 
the  daylight 

When  that  came,  the  deep  blue  grow- 
ing whiter  on  the  sky  line  to  the  east, 
then  flushing,  then  spreading  quickly 
over  all  the  zenith  in  vivid  yellow  that 
foretold  the  fiery  heat  to  follow ;  when 
the  morning  was  just  beginning,  he 
stood,  with  Felicia  beside  him,  looking 
blankly  at  the  place  where  the  two 
wagons  and  the  hobbled  horses  had 
been.  There  were  now  only  the  tracks 
and  debris,  the  scattered  hay  and  grain 
of  what  had  been  a  camping  spot.  The 
teams  had  already  pulled  out.  They 
walked  together  down  the  street,  past 
the  church,  between  the  low,  white 
houses  in  which  no  one  seemed  to  be 
stirring  yet.  And  coming  out  into  the 
open,  they  saw  far  down  the  streak  of 
road  which  stretched  away  and  away 
across  the  face  of  the  sun-gilded  waste  the 
white  canvas  tops  of  two  wagons,  which 
98 


THE   GOLDEN  CHAIN 

crawled  along  toward  the  faint  blue 
range  of  mountains  with  its  one  snow 
peak. 

They  were  side  by  side  and  hand  in 
hand.  He  bent  his  head  and  looked 
down  into  the  face  that  was  hardly  on 
a  level  with  his  shoulders,  a  pale  and 
wistful  face,  with  lips  which  were  quiv- 
ering now.  She  raised  her  eyes.  And 
they  were  full  of  tears.  Two  big  tears 
were  on  her  cheeks. 

No  one  was  in  the  desert  that  reached 
away  in  front  of  them,  no  one  was  out 
in  the  street  behind.  And  they  neither 
of  them  thought  of  a  little  Mexican  girl 
who  was  standing  in  the  doorway  of  the 
adobe  hut,  not  a  stone's  throw  in  the 
rear,  standing  in  the  same  doorway  from 
which  she  had  held  back  the  mob  of 
her  fanatic  and  vengeful  people  not 
many  hours  before. 

For  Keble  there  was,  just  then,  no 

woman  in  all  the  fresh,  new  world  save 

only  the  one  whom  he   took  into  his 

arms,   and  held   and  kissed;    while  a 

99 


THE  GOLDEN  CHAIN 

linnet  on  a  sahuaro  trilled  its  song  to 
the  daybreak,  and  was  answered  by  the 
caged  and  lonely  mocking-bird  on  the 
wall  above  Santa  Pepita's  down-bowed 
head. 


MISS  GWENDOLEN  OVERTON,  whose 
powerful  story,  "  Anne  Carmel,"  is  one 
of  the  strongest  and  finest  novels  of  the 
year,  has  come  upon  very  unusual  expe- 
riences during  more  than  half  of  her 
twenty-nine  years.  The  daughter  of 
Captain  Gilbert  Overton  was  born  in 
what  on  the  frontier  passes  for  a  fort, 
—  an  army  post  in  the  far  West  named 
Fort  Hayes ;  and  she  began  her  career 
of  continuous  travelling  when  she  was  a 
month  or  two  old.  At  that  time  she  was 
taken  with  the  troops,  in  an  ambulance, 
the  long  march  from  Kansas  to  Arizona. 
She  has  lived  in  nearly  all  the  army  posts 
of  Arizona  and  New  Mexico.  She  took 
to  burro-back  in  her  tenderest  years. 
Soon  she  was  promoted  to  a  mule,  and 
by  and  by  she  became  a  finished  and  noted 
horsewoman.  She  was  on  the  frontier 
most  of  the  time,  and  in  the  East  part  of 
the  time,  until  she  was  fourteen. 

Thereafter  she  and  her  people  lived  for  a 
few  years  in  France,  where  the  author  of 
"  Anne  Carmel "  received  much  of  that 
part  of  her  education  which  has  come  from 
books.  To  her  education  in  France  is 
doubtless  due  much  of  her  comparative 


horizon ;  but  the  larger  preparation  for 
writing  her  first  novel  was  acquired  in 
the  Southwest,  that  "  lonely  but  master- 
ful land."  Later  the  Overtons  spent  a 
couple  of  years  in  Washington  ;  and  when 
Miss  Overton  was  about  twenty-one  or 
twenty-two  the  family  came  to  live  in  Los 
Angeles,  California.  Here  Miss  Overton 
lives  when  she  is  not  on  one  of  her  long 
periodical  trips  to  the  East,  to  Mexico,  to 
Canada,  or  elsewhere.  She  has  picked 
up  a  good  deal  of  Spanish,  as  well  as  an 
exceptionally  fine  and  accurate  know- 
ledge of  the  French  language,  of  French 
life,  and  of  the  best  French  literature. 
For  the  most  part  she  is  now  a  quiet 
dweller  in  Los  Angeles,  of  no  apparent 
fondness  for  the  white  light  that  beats 
upon  a  reception  of  writerlings. 
The  real  West,  of  plains  and  mountains, 
rather  than  modern  California,  has  made 
Miss  Overton  what  she  is.  She  is  often 
spoken  of  as  a  California  writer ;  but  as 
a  matter  of  fact,  her  genius  and  her  out- 
look upon  life,  and  to  a  large  extent  also 
her  character,  both  as  a  woman  and  as  a 
writer,  have  been  formed  by  the  West  of 
the  plains  and  the  mountains,  where  there 


are  no  health  resorts.  The  portions  of 
Arizona  and  New  Mexico  in  which  army 
posts  were  situated  a  score  of  years  ago, 
were  calculated  to  leave  a  deep  impres- 
sion on  any  one  who  grew  up  amid  them. 
For  this  reason  the  distinction  of  Miss 
Overton  as  a  California  writer  is  inexact ; 
besides,  Miss  Overton  does  not,  as  it 
happens,  write  about  California.  The 
region  that  has  made  her  is  that  de- 
scribed in  her  first  novel,  "  The  Heri- 
tage of  Unrest."  She  has  lived  in  so 
many  different  places  that  she  is  prop- 
erly spoken  of  as  being  of  or  from  that 
place  which  has  formed  her  genius, — the 
part  of  the  West  that  either  breeds  self- 
reljance  or  kills. 

If  I  can  claim  to  be  from  or  of  any  one 
place,  I  suppose  I  should  say  it  was  of 
the  part  of  the  country  I  wrote  about  in 
my  first  book.  That  life  influenced  me 
very  greatly ;  and  I  dare  say  that  no  one 
who  does  not  know  it  can  understand  the 
hold  it  takes  on  the  affection  and  imagi- 
nation of  one  who  was  brought  up  to  it. 
A  reporter  asked  me  a  while  ago  what 
I  read  in  particular;  but  as  my  tastes 
weren't  what  seemed  to  be  expected,  he 
3 


lost  interest  in  the  theme.  An  author 
should,  I  gathered,  pore  over  the  lives  of 
other  authors,  —  poets  and  the  like ;  and 
unfortunately  people  of  action  are  more 
to  my  fancy  when  it  comes  to  biography." 
Miss  Overton  reads  few  modern  novels. 
Probably  any  one  who  has  been  brought 
up  and  trained  on  the  better  French 
novelists  and  the  French  critics  becomes 
hypercritical.  "  Personally  I  know  I 
have  a  standard  so  severe  as  a  conse- 
quence of  Sainte-Beuve  and  Brunetiere 
that  I  am  foredoomed  to  dissatisfaction 
with  anything  I  may  do." 
Miss  Overton  is  at  her  desk  by  8.30  every 
morning,  and  works  until  luncheon.  She 
spends  her  afternoons  in  recreation.  In 
particular  she  likes  sailing,  and  much  of 
her  playtime  is  spent  on  the  water  in 
company  with  her  younger  brother. 


The    Macmillan    Little    Novels 

BY   FAVOURITE   AUTHORS 

Handsomely  Bound  in  Decorated  Cloth 

i6mo       50  cents  each 


By  WINSTON  CHURCHILL,  author  of  "  The  Crisis," 
"Ric 


<Philosophy  Four 

A  STORY  OF  HARVARD   UNIVERSITY.     By 
OWEN  WISTER,  author  of  "The  Virginian,"  etc. 

Man  Overboard 

By  F.  MARION  CRAWFORD,  author  of  "  Cecilia," 
"Marietta,"  etc. 

Mr.  Keegan's  Elopement 
WINSTON  CHURCI 
ichard  Carvel,"  etc. 

Mrs.  Pendleton's  Four-in-Hand 

By  GERTRUDE  ATHERTON,  author  of  "  The  Con- 
queror,"  "  The  Splendid  Idle  Forties,"  etc. 

The  Saint  of  the  Dragon's  Dale 

By  WILLIAM  STEARNS  DAVIS,  author  of  "  A  Friend 
of  Caesar,"  "  God  Wills  It,"  etc. 

The  Golden  Chain 

By  GWENDOLEN  OVERTON,  author  of  "  The  Heri- 
tage of  Unrest,"  "  Anne  Carmel,"  etc. 

Their  Child 

By  ROBERT  HERRICK,  author  of  "  The  Web  of 
Life,"  "  The  Real  World,"  etc. 


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